Conversions to Orthodoxy

[Matrona]

Most, if not all of us here are converts. It seems we are from different backgrounds, different regions, different countries. But our lives have all converged on one point: our being Orthodox Christians.

So, how did you get to be here?

My story's a little unusual, but I'll post mine later. First I want to hear stories from others. Come on, don't be shy. :)

(If The Powers That Be want to make this a sticky so that it'll be available for visitors' perusal, that's fine. ;) )

[Moros]

The search for religious TRUTH.

[brewmama]

I told mine one time and got taken to task for part of it, so I will give an abbreviated version.

I tried to get into the Catholic Church, but was denied due to a divorce (the marriage was before I ever even considered becoming a Christian). I am currently married with 2 children. Anyway, a friend of mine (a non-Christian at that) advised me to check out the Orthodox Church instead. I had never heard of it, but there were several in the area (Boulder-Denver), so I looked into it. I fell in love immediately, and realized that it was exactly what I was looking for, more so than the Catholic Church in its current state, which is not at all what my romantic vision of it from childhood entailed. (What I mean is the massive changes post-Vatican II. ) My only dilemma was Eastern Rite or Western Rite, since I had both to choose from. My prior divorce was not the issue it was for the Catholics. I am very, very happy in the Western Rite parish I am in, since it more than fulfills all those longings I had for the old Catholic Church. I think with awe about the fact that if the Catholic Church had let me in, I may never have come into contact with Orthodoxy. I believe God was guiding me.

[Epiphany]

Most, if not all of us here are converts. It seems we are from different backgrounds, different regions, different countries. But our lives have all converged on one point: our being Orthodox Christians.

So, how did you get to be here?

My story's a little unusual, but I'll post mine later. First I want to hear stories from others. Come on, don't be shy. :)

(If The Powers That Be want to make this a sticky so that it'll be available for visitors' perusal, that's fine. ;) )
To Life Immortal

My testimony is in the testimony folder in this forum. To make a long story short, Orthodoxy is logical. I enjoy the Divine Liturgy and find meaning in it. It is like watching an opera about Lord Jesus.

Peace and Long Life
~*~ Epiphany ~*~

[Matrona]

Apparently no one else is willing to bite the bullet, so I'll go. :)

My parents are what you'd call "cultural Christians", sort of a phenomenon of living here in the South. We went to church for a while starting when I was about seven or eight (1990-ish), and ending in 1995. It was non-denominational "contemporary" church that met in a private school's auditorium. I remember being very bored by it. My parents never discussed religion outside of church, and I have to say, they didn't really live it, either--they say terrible swear words as everyday language, and there are many other justifications for my saying this that I shouldn't really go into in public.

I had no idea who this Jesus was, or why the hell I should care. Before we started going to this church, "Jesus" was just some name I heard sometimes at school or on TV. "Jesus" was what my parents yelled if they hit their fingers on a door or something like that.

The Gospel According to Courtney:

In Sunday school I learned that Jesus was this really nice guy who lived a long time ago. He had a lot of good things to say, but for some reason some people didn't like him, so they nailed him to a cross and let him die on a Friday. They stuck him in a tomb somewhere and he lay dead until Sunday morning, when, for some reason, he actually came back to life, got up, and walked out. Then some women came and saw the tomb with the stone sealing it rolled to the side. An angel came up and said something like, "Hey, this guy rose from the dead, so he ain't here, sorry." And God saw that it was cool. The end.

Yes, I'm serious, that's about all I knew of the Gospel until I was, well, shall we say, old enough that I should have known better. But no one was fussed with making sure I was aware of the finer points of such things as these, and I was therefore not fussed wth learning them.

To go into more detail about this church, I have to say, at least they understood the importance of giving communion every week. Sure, it was a wafer and a little shotglass of grape juice, and I neither understood the significance of it nor why I wasn't allowed to partake. When I was ten or eleven, we were finally allowed to take communion in my Sunday school class. (Until I became Orthodox, that was the first and last time I'd taken communion. Ever. Anywhere.) I still didn't know what the significance was or why our teacher apologized in advance for having us take communion if it turned out we weren't ready. This confused me for years, I'm telling you. If you are wondering, no, I was not baptized, at that point or any other. I also don't ever remember saying anything called a "sinners prayer" but I might have, I don't know.

I received a Bible when I was ten, a gift from the church for memorizing all the books of the New Testament. I treasured (and still have, somewhere) that Bible. Even though I still didn't have any idea what it all meant. It was like there was some block on my mind, that made words from Scripture run through my head, in one ear and out the other, with no comprehension or understanding.

Not long after that, though, my family decided to stop going to church. The "official reason" was because my parents perceived some slight against them as being personal. Something bad happened in my hometown at that time, and my family was one of the ones affected severely. It was extremely painful for us, and I think it was compounded by the lack of spiritual support caused by no longer going to any kind of church.

Those were painful years, believe me. I praise the Lord for His mercy upon me during this time, because church or no church, the little I had learned from going had had an effect on me, and I continued to pray in secret. I wasn't entirely sure who I was talking to or why I had to talk to Him this way. Or why I even thought He existed, since I'd never seen Him or heard Him talk back.

There were times I drifted towards very, uh, human-manufactured personal philosophies--like most teenage girls I researched a little on paganism, wicca, etc. For a little bit I flirted with secular humanism. But I guess God had some kind of hold on me because everything just kept coming back to this Jesus guy and the Christian God. So I resolved to one day become a Christian. That day wasn't going to come soon, since my parents weren't exactly crazy about the idea of going back to church. But I would one day investigate all the Christian denominations and figure out which one I liked the most, and become whatever it was.

The center of this was my desire to be baptized. It would be a looooong time before I ever found out on an intellectual level what it really means to be baptized. But somewhere in my heart I knew there was a difference between me, and baptized Christians, and I needed to be one.

It was then that my sister announced her intention to become a Mormon, which she followed through with on her eighteenth birthday. She deconverted not long after going off to college. I have gone into more detail about this elsewhere, but suffice it to say, I managed to withstand, with my baby Christian faith, the proselytizing that I was subjected to by my sister's Mormon missionary friends. Thank the Lord.

In the middle of all of this, I became pro-life. I'm not sure how--my parents are fervently pro-abortion and raised me to be the same. (As they say, that's just the first of many ways I've disappointed them over the years.) Anyone who has been out from under a rock for longer than five seconds knows that the pro-life movement is predominantly Christian. When I went off to college, I became involved with my campus's pro-life group. At the first meeting, when we were asked to cite a reason why we were pro-life, I was the only one--and I mean the ONLY one--who didn't specify religion. One of the guys there decided I must be a heathen, and began to evangelize to me. I rolled my eyes at him but decided to go to this "Campus Crusade" meeting he invited me to, just to get him to shut up. (Besides, he was kind of cute.)

Well, was THAT ever an experience. They sang "praise and worship" songs I had no idea of the lyrics of, but everyone else seemed so impassioned by it, raising their hands, etc., that I figured I had to be in the right place. After all, they could tell me more about this Jesus guy that I didn't know. Who was he? Why is he so important? Why do we follow him? Why does God have a son? The tragedy of September 11th had just happened a few weeks before, and for obvious reasons I wasn't the only one seeking answers to these questions.

But as my months with Campus Crusade wore on, I felt a spiritual stagnation come upon me--these people had no answers, they just had more of the "Jesus is a nice guy" stories. No word on the importance of the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. All they told me was that Jesus dying on the cross somehow "paid the debt" for my sins. Their characterization of God was some kind of creditor in the sky, waiting to zap his underlings for being naughty, and the only thing that stopped him doing it was some guy who was nailed to a cross 2000 years ago.

At that point, it's a wonder I didn't give up on organized religion altogether.

I think the last straw for me was when I was emphatically encouraged to go on a mission trip to convert other people. Wait a minute--I barely know anything about what I'm supposed to believe, how the hell am I supposed to convert other people to this? It's bad enough that I'm stuck in it--I'm supposed to curse other people to this ecclesiastical limbo, this strange middle ground? No... no, I wasn't going to do it. I was going to find a church, right then and there. And whatever it was, was going to tell me all these things I'd missed over the years, the things no one at Campus Crusade found important enough to tell me. (Or rather, found me important enough to make sure I knew, but I digress...)

About this time, I had been reading Frederica Mathewes-Green's pro-life works for a long time and had started to touch on her religious works. The idea of "Orthodoxy" confused me. What an odd thing--a Christian denomination I'd barely ever heard of.

My sophomore year had just begun and my university was having a student organization fair, where students could come check out the different organizations on campus. The table I was running was in the bright summer sun, and directly behind me, in the shade, was the table for Orthodox Christian Fellowship. I was in the sun, they were in the shade--it doesn't take a genius to say, maybe I should take a break and check out their table for awhile, hmm? And yet aside from that, I felt a strange urge to go to their table, specifically. Theirs was the closest but not the only one in the shade. There were plenty of other groups I could have checked out. And of course, Campus Crusade was in there somewhere.

Anyway, there was a nice, friendly-looking guy working their table, so I decided I'd strike up a conversation with him and see if he had read anything of Frederica Mathewes-Green's pro-life writings. Somehow, the conversation ended up being about Orthodoxy and since I was looking for a church anyway, I figured I might as well look at these Orthodox churches too. I had been about to visit the Episcopal cathedral close to campus, but I decided I'd hold off on that for awhile until I saw what these Orthodox people were all about. Also, if nothing else, visiting an Orthodox church would be an interesting story to tell my kids one day. ("When Mommy was in college, she visited this craaaaazy church....") I got the nice guy's name and number and decided I would go to an OCF meeting to see what they were all about.

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... ;)

[Suzannah]

Matrona! when???? You can't leave me hanging like this...it's cruel. Plain cruelty. I'm dying to know what happened! (I haven't had the courage to post mine, but I promise I will, after I get the sequel to your post.)
:grin:

[ChoirDir]

My conversion to Orthodoxy begins in 1979. I was a NYC Paramedic at the time and one of my instructors in the academy was a Sub-Deacon in the Orthodox Church. Pete and I became close during my orientation classes and we got to talking about what we do after the job. He mentioned that he was very involved with his church and would hold little clinics to check parishioners blood pressures. He told me they were having one of these clinics on the weekend and that afterwards there would be vespers and a guest speaker was coming to the church.
I was a disenchanted Catholic by birth. The radical changes brought about by Vatican II left me empty inside. The Catholic Church services now seemed so Protestant to me. The idea of my next door neighbor giving communion somehow lessened the spirituality of the sacrament. The guitars and drums that replaced the choir seemed so out of place. Women on the altar did not appear right after being educated when the Church was so different before Vatican II.
But there was an emptiness inside because I wanted to be a part of something. So off I went to meet Pete. His parish was made up of a lot of older Slavic people and they loved the idea of Pete bringing some of his paramedic buddies to assist.
The vespers service was something that reminded me of the old days in the Catholic Church. A dark church lit with candles and the chanting and sensor awoke something inside me that had laid dorment for many years.
Well a year had passed and I met a woman who I fell in love with and it turned out she was Orthodox. We were married in the Orthodox Church in 1982. I remember the priest and I discussing Orthodoxy and this began my true inquiry and journey to becoming Orthodox.
To be continued

[Matrona]

Matrona! when???? You can't leave me hanging like this...it's cruel. Plain cruelty. I'm dying to know what happened! (I haven't had the courage to post mine, but I promise I will, after I get the sequel to your post.)
:grin:Awww, thanks Suzannah. :)

I would have sat here and finished it, but I have to study for a quiz this afternoon ( :tremble: ) and in about half an hour, I have to go with Nice OCF Guy (from the story) to a prayer service for OCF college ministry. ;) Without OCF, I wouldn't be here, so I feel a special responsibility to speak out on its behalf and support this program whenever and wherever I can.

I will try to finish, or at least post more of it, tonight. In some ways this part is going to be even more difficult than the part I've already written.

[Momzilla]

Ooooh, Matrona and ChoirDir, you guys are so mean! ;) I can't wait for further installments.

And Suzannah, please don't be shy to share your story!

[Suzannah]

:)

[ChoirDir]

Pt 2
My talks with the priest continued and several months after my marriage came Pascha. My first experience with the Feast of Feasts was a major turn in my life. All these people proclaiming and shouting the joy of Christ's Resurrection. To me I had never experienced this before. The Catholic Church always focused on the sufferings of our Lord, but this joy in his death and resurrection was something that set my soul on fire. After talking with the Priest, and learning that in the old days Catachumens were received on Holy Saturday. I made it my quest to convert in a years time. My wife however wasn't too crazy about this. She told me she was sick of church that her parents had forced it down her throat since she was little and she certainly didn't want to be married to a convert. (In her eyes converts were worse than Cradle Orthodox because of their zeal). In an effort to keep my marriage happy I postponed my conversion but still studied and attended services most times by myself but occasionally with her as well. Finally after a few years of this, I saw that she wasn't going to change her mind and I was still adamant about converting. So I told her I was going on with my conversion. Well after I converted she rarely if ever went to Church with me. I guess the nail in the coffin was when her father passed away. He was very respected in the Church and was given a wonderful send off. The priest insisted that his body lie in the church for 24 hours before the funeral. At the end of the funeral service, my wife in her grief or just her way of thinking proclaimed to everyone "there is no God, or he wouldn't have taken my father." Things went downhill from there in the marriage and we split and divorced in 1999. But it was for the better. I moved to SC where I found a new mission parish in need of my musical talents and I have since met a wonderful woman who now is interested in joining the faith.

[Matthias]

My conversion to Orthodoxy begins next Monday... :)

[ChoirDir]

Congradulations Matthias and welcome

[Suzannah]

:clap:

That's wonderful Matthias!!! Congratulations!

[Matthias]

Thanks! You're Irish?

[Matrona]

My conversion to Orthodoxy begins next Monday... :)
Congrats, Matthias! :clap: :hug: :clap:

[Suzannah]

Thanks! You're Irish?
Aye...'tis not my fault!!! :P

[NewToLife]

I've never fully analysed my reasons for conversion before but here's a vague account.

I was a protestant who initially accepted sola fide and sola scriptura but I've never been one to have someone tell me what to believe as I've always been able to find reasons to distrust the authority of those doing the telling. This meant that I made a commitment to bible study and over time I came to question many of the things that protestantism accepts as true.

I could not accept sola scriptura after a time as it gave rise to so many differing interpretations all held by people who felt that they had been guided to their view by the indwelling holy spirit. I could never accept that He would tell us all different versions and lead some astray.

After a time I found also the issue of baptism troubling, I was firmly in favour of infant baptism but found the practice of confirmation quite unjustifiable. Once baptised I always believed a child ought to be in full communion with the church, to do otherwise seemed to me to devalue the nature of baptism itself.

For me it was obvious that the church ought to be a critical part of a christian life, many evangelicals that I knew held a vague view of the church that I found deeply unsatisfying and stressed only a personal relationship with Christ. For me the community of the church was obviously important but often seemed ignored within evangelicalism. I became disillusioned as the evangelicals that I knew were able to justify doctrinal corruption within our church on the basis of the churches relative lack of import.

After a time I began to research catholicism with a view to conversion, although I found much to commend in catholicism there were a number of recent dogmas that I was simply unable to accept as the truth. This discovery shook my faith for a time as I began to believe that God may have failed in His promise to protect His church, I drifted spiritually and became depressed.

Then I discovered orthodoxy, I found a church that had protected its faith for 2 millenia where the church was as central as I'd come to believe it ought to be and where neither love nor truth was sacrificed. Even my old resistance to authority evaporated as I discovered that this church's authority was derived directly from our Lord via the unbroken line from the apostles through the bishops of the church. Friom the time i attended my first divine liturgy I believe it became inevitable that I would convert. Everything here was just so right.

I didnt find the journey here easy it took a while and involved some painful moments along the way but by the grace of God I did eventually find my way home. For that I am eternally grateful.

[Matrona]

I don't have any time right now to finish my story, but I stumbled across this little gem. I hope it will provide some encouragement to our inquirers, so you know all of us had to start somewhere. ;)

This is my original post on an Orthodox message board, after my first OCF meeting but before my first visit to an Orthodox church:


badblood829
9/10/02 11:18 PM 1 out of 34

Hi everybody, I'm new here. I came here because I've been thinking about converting to Eastern Orthodox from being a freelance Protestant, only I have a few questions. I hope no one will think I'm too dumb or irreverent for asking them since the answers probably seem obvious to those who have been around the EO faith longer than me. I am planning on visiting an Orthodox church soon and I've practically memorized Frederica Mathewes-Green's "12 Things I Wish I'd Known" pamphlet.

1: What's with the sign of the cross? How do you do it? When do you do it? When do you do it more than once? I have only rarely gone to church in my life and I don't understand the concept of venerating icons or invoking the Trinity. (An explanation of what those are would really help, too.)

2: I'm a relatively young person (around 20) but I can't stand up for too long, otherwise I start feeling dizzy. Is anyone going to give me the evil eye if I have a seat during most or all of the service? I don't want to be seen as lazy but it would be terribly disruptive of me to pass out during my very first visit.

3: I've been invited to an Antiochial Orthodox church and a Russian Orthodox church. What's the difference?

4: How is the Christ is in our midst greeting (mentioned in the 12 things pamphlet) used? Do you just go around walking up to people saying "Christ is in our midst"? Again, I don't mean to sound irreverent but please remember how ignorant I am.

That's all I can think of right now. I hope I haven't offended anyone and I hope someone can help me soon. Thanks.For the record:

--I now make the sign of the cross many times per day

--I can now stand for all of Matins and Liturgy with no ill effects (by the Grace of God, though)

--I am now aware of the proper spelling of "Antiochian"

--the Antiochian church I referred to is now my church home

--the "Russian Orthodox" church is actually an OCA mission

--I am now quite skilled at Liturgical Speed-Hugging. ;)

[MariaRegina]

Thank you, Newtolife, for your post.

When I was on my journey to Orthodoxy, I used to tell the Orthodox Priest:

"It's strange that Orthodoxy doesn't believe in a state or place called 'Purgatory' like the Catholics, yet tell us that we must undergo 'purgation' here in this life."

My first seven years within Orthodoxy first as an inquirer, then a catechumen, and finally as a Chrismated Orthodox were painful. It is not an easy life to live the Orthodox way, but it is a profoundly interior life of constant self-denial, growing in theosis, and putting on Christ.

And so I find myself still undergoing purgation, illumination, and sanctification in this temporary life in hopes of reaching paradise in the reality that awaits us. This present life is for repenting.

Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and save us.

Yours in Christ our God,
Elizabeth

[Suzannah]

Newtolife: GRAND STORY!!! LOVED IT!!!
:clap::clap::clap:

Matrona...you've done it again.....we're still in agony waiting for Part 2
:sigh:
LOL!

[Matrona]

Okay, I've finally gotten around to writing this... It's only a little bit more, but I feel bad about leaving this unfinished for so long. So here's some more of my story!

***

I decided I would try an OCF meeting. I came so close to not going--I am notoriously lazy, and it was either walk all the way over to Greene Street for the meeting, or have an extra hour to zip around on the internet and listen to music (by far my favorite pastime).

I'm not really sure how, but I somehow managed to talk myself into going. I have to say I wasn't terribly impressed by it, mostly because I couldn't understand half of what Father was talking about.

Chrismation?

Pascha?

Liturgy?

Logos?

Theotokos?

What the hell was this, Alice in freakin' Wonderland?!

Still, despite the meeting going way over my head, I was still interested in Orthodoxy, so I figured, if it was worth understanding, I'd eventually figure out what was going on. I had done a little reading--not much, but some--over the weekend, and I was particularly interested in hearing about why the Orthodox Church claims to be the New Testament church. The New Testament church. I mean, I'd never heard anyone make that claim besides total wackjobs who claimed early church worship was like a "bible study". (How do you have a bible study when the New Testament canon won't be compiled until 300 years in the future, I wonder? Why don't you just ask me to write a research paper on a textbook that won't be completed until the year 2304? Anyway, I digress, sorry...)

One of the other OCF students gave me her phone number and told me to call her if I ever wanted to visit church with her. It took me until that Saturday to work up the nerve to call her, but I did. That Sunday morning, I set foot inside an actual church for the first time in six years.

Naturally, despite how well-prepared I thought I was, I was really confused by it. The incense made me sneeze like crazy, I got sick of standing REALLY fast and had to sit down, and even though the entire thing was in English, I still wasn't sure what was going on, and I found the whole thing intimidating. It was like the whole church had a "holiness armor" that I couldn't get through. I'd never felt this way before about anything. But I knew I really wanted to understand Orthodoxy, I really did! There was something about this odd church with the pictures everywhere and the constant music that made me feel like I HAD to figure this out.

Later on, when I was comparing this with all the Campus Crusade revivals I had been to, I realized there really wasn't any comparison at all. It was obvious--Crusade couldn't hold a candle (ha ha) to this beautiful, strange liturgy thingy.

As dumb and ignorant as I was (and still am) about Lord Jesus, and the Bible, I could tell, from just that one liturgy, that the Orthodox definitely knew God. Crusade was a bunch of happy songs about some Jesus guy who I couldn't understand, then a sermon that put me to sleep faster than dramamine. Not one person there could tell me what it meant for Jesus to be the Son of God, or what the Trinity was, or why this Jesus guy could come back from the dead.

On the other hand, Orthodoxy was deep. How else could they sing so eloquently and passionately about the Trinity? Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us... How else could they celebrate the Resurrection as though it had happened that morning?

These people are clearly onto something, here!

Two weeks after my visit to the OCA mission, I decided to try the Antiochian mission. This time, I would be going for matins as well as the liturgy. Oh boy, I thought that Saturday night, as I drifted off to sleep. I get to wake up an hour earlier than last time, just so I can go home with two and a half hours' worth of aching feet. Why, exactly, am I doing this?!

Please don't hold that against me. I couldn't have known how the next day's visit would change my life forever.

To be continued... :)

[Suzannah]

You do know that the phrase, "To be continued..." is keeping me awake at night???
\Seriously, I have wondered about Part 2 for what two weeks????
:(

[Matrona]

You do know that the phrase, "To be continued..." is keeping me awake at night???
\Seriously, I have wondered about Part 2 for what two weeks????
:(
I'm sorry. :( Tomorrow I'll try to write more, I really will... it's just difficult for me to write about such deeply personal things, even when I badly want to share them. Right now I gotta go to bed, but I promise I'll wrap this up really soon! :)

[MariaRegina]

I'm sorry. :( Tomorrow I'll try to write more, I really will... it's just difficult for me to write about such deeply personal things, even when I badly want to share them. Right now I gotta go to bed, but I promise I'll wrap this up really soon! :)

Matrona -- you're a good writer -- it was better than reading a Left Behind book!
:D

I too eagerly await your third installment.

Yours in Christ,
Elizabeth

[Suzannah]

I'm sorry. :( Tomorrow I'll try to write more, I really will... it's just difficult for me to write about such deeply personal things, even when I badly want to share them. Right now I gotta go to bed, but I promise I'll wrap this up really soon! :):hug:
Love you Matrona...you are one of the dearest people I've ever met and I just wanna hear your story...we Irish are insatiable with stories....
:)
I know its hard...I did it too..but I did in ONE PEICE, haha...so there!
Love,
Suzannah

[Momzilla]

:hug: you have me on the edge of my seat, Matrona! But I will do my best to wait patiently until you are ready to finish your story ....

[Photini]

Coming soon: Photini's conversion story ....

[xenia]

Here's where you can find my story, and Jeff the Finn's story, too!

http://www.orthodoxconvert.com/testimony/

Love, Xenia

[Iacobus]

I love conversion stories. For what its worth, here’s mine. Its not that interesting, but I love to tell it.

My wife and I have home schooled our kids for quite a while. Several years ago, I was looking at a curriculum catalog, and in particular a Church History block. One of the books that was a part of that course was Father Peter Gillquist’s Becoming Orthodox. The blurb in the catalog talked about 2000 evangelicals becoming Orthodox all in one fell swoop. “What the heck is that all about,” I asked my wife. :scratch: I just thought it was weird.

At that time, Orthodoxy had never really entered onto our radar. I had been to a Greek Festival about 20 years before, but had not gone into the Church. I really had no clue what Orthodoxy was about. The blurb was enough to pique my curiosity, though, so I started reading everything I could find, starting with the usual suspects – Mathewes-Greene, Schaeffer, Gillquist, Bishop Kallistos. I was stunned by the whole thing. For the first time, everything in the Bible was presented in a way that was seamless and completely coherent. After several months of reading, I had pretty much converted in my head, but I still had not been into a Church.

The problem is that where we live, there are no Orthodox Churches closer than two hours away. On top of that, aside from my day job, I was a local pastor in the Methodist Church – kind of minor league clergy – and Sundays were spent doing that job. Finally though, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and located a ROCOR church, and went for Saturday evening vigil.

I’ll never forget that first visit. I went into the building, and put my hand on the door into the Church proper. I could hear the choir singing music I had never heard before, and I could smell the incense. I knew, beyond any doubt, that if I turned that doorknob and went in, my life would never be the same. I hesitated a few seconds, thought to myself “Toto, we’re not in Kansas any more”, and then turned the knob and went in.

For the first 10 or 15 minutes, I fought the urge to run screaming out of the building. It was so — different. Then I spent about 10 minutes thinking my feet hurt. Then the next time I looked at my watch, two hours had passed without me realizing it. I left in a daze, still processing what I had seen and heard. The next day in my Methodist Church, I was preparing to start the service when, without warning, I caught a whiff of incense. My head snapped up and I looked around, but, of course, no one was burning it there. For the next week, at odd moments: in the car, in court (I’m a lawyer), walking down the street, I’d catch the smell of incense. A couple of weeks later I took my oldest daughter for vigil, and the same incense thing happened to her. In fact, the day after, we were back in the Methodist Church, and she turned to me and said “Dad, I don’t think I can ever go back to the kind of worship we do here.”

Like a lot of people, I was concerned about my wife and kids. In fact, I was prepared to become kind of the Methodist Orthodox Lone Ranger if my wife, in particular, wouldn’t convert. I really did not think that she would go for it. Theological issues aside, I think it freaked her out when I took her to the ROCOR parish and some people refused to believe that she wasn’t Russian. After several months, however, she casually told me one day – “We need to convert. Orthodoxy really is the true church.”

After I picked myself up off the floor, we didn’t waste much time. For a while, I tried to have a foot in both camps, but after Pascha of that year, I resigned my position with the Methodists and we concentrated on being catechumens. We found a Carpatho-Russian parish nearer the house, and we love it. What was even more gratifying to both of us is that our two daughters, both teenagers, independently decided to convert as well. We were careful to leave that decision to them, but – Praise God! – they both decided to become Orthodox as well. :clap:

To be honest, my only regret was that I couldn’t take my Methodist congregations with me. I confess that I really loved the local pastor bit, and I loved those people. With some of them I’m a bit of a pariah, but most have been pretty good about it. I’m still working on them!

So now, at this point, we’re fully integrated. I’m in the diaconal program, my older daughter (when she comes home from college) and I are in the choir, and we’re all happy as clams. And Lent has become one of our favorite times of the year. Go figure. :D

[Suzannah]

I love conversion stories. For what its worth, here’s mine. Its not that interesting, but I love to tell it.

My wife and I have home schooled our kids for quite a while. Several years ago, I was looking at a curriculum catalog, and in particular a Church History block. One of the books that was a part of that course was Father Peter Gillquist’s Becoming Orthodox. The blurb in the catalog talked about 2000 evangelicals becoming Orthodox all in one fell swoop. “What the heck is that all about,” I asked my wife. :scratch: I just thought it was weird.

At that time, Orthodoxy had never really entered onto our radar. I had been to a Greek Festival about 20 years before, but had not gone into the Church. I really had no clue what Orthodoxy was about. The blurb was enough to pique my curiosity, though, so I started reading everything I could find, starting with the usual suspects – Mathewes-Greene, Schaeffer, Gillquist, Bishop Kallistos. I was stunned by the whole thing. For the first time, everything in the Bible was presented in a way that was seamless and completely coherent. After several months of reading, I had pretty much converted in my head, but I still had not been into a Church.

The problem is that where we live, there are no Orthodox Churches closer than two hours away. On top of that, aside from my day job, I was a local pastor in the Methodist Church – kind of minor league clergy – and Sundays were spent doing that job. Finally though, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and located a ROCOR church, and went for Saturday evening vigil.

I’ll never forget that first visit. I went into the building, and put my hand on the door into the Church proper. I could hear the choir singing music I had never heard before, and I could smell the incense. I knew, beyond any doubt, that if I turned that doorknob and went in, my life would never be the same. I hesitated a few seconds, thought to myself “Toto, we’re not in Kansas any more”, and then turned the knob and went in.

For the first 10 or 15 minutes, I fought the urge to run screaming out of the building. It was so — different. Then I spent about 10 minutes thinking my feet hurt. Then the next time I looked at my watch, two hours had passed without me realizing it. I left in a daze, still processing what I had seen and heard. The next day in my Methodist Church, I was preparing to start the service when, without warning, I caught a whiff of incense. My head snapped up and I looked around, but, of course, no one was burning it there. For the next week, at odd moments: in the car, in court (I’m a lawyer), walking down the street, I’d catch the smell of incense. A couple of weeks later I took my oldest daughter for vigil, and the same incense thing happened to her. In fact, the day after, we were back in the Methodist Church, and she turned to me and said “Dad, I don’t think I can ever go back to the kind of worship we do here.”

Like a lot of people, I was concerned about my wife and kids. In fact, I was prepared to become kind of the Methodist Orthodox Lone Ranger if my wife, in particular, wouldn’t convert. I really did not think that she would go for it. Theological issues aside, I think it freaked her out when I took her to the ROCOR parish and some people refused to believe that she wasn’t Russian. After several months, however, she casually told me one day – “We need to convert. Orthodoxy really is the true church.”

After I picked myself up off the floor, we didn’t waste much time. For a while, I tried to have a foot in both camps, but after Pascha of that year, I resigned my position with the Methodists and we concentrated on being catechumens. We found a Carpatho-Russian parish nearer the house, and we love it. What was even more gratifying to both of us is that our two daughters, both teenagers, independently decided to convert as well. We were careful to leave that decision to them, but – Praise God! – they both decided to become Orthodox as well. :clap:

To be honest, my only regret was that I couldn’t take my Methodist congregations with me. I confess that I really loved the local pastor bit, and I loved those people. With some of them I’m a bit of a pariah, but most have been pretty good about it. I’m still working on them!

So now, at this point, we’re fully integrated. I’m in the diaconal program, my older daughter (when she comes home from college) and I are in the choir, and we’re all happy as clams. And Lent has become one of our favorite times of the year. Go figure. :D
What you mean, "not that interesting"???? I LOVED THIS STORY!!!
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
So!!! When are you going to become a priest??? :D

I thought it was wonderful in your story that you kept smelling the incense...you know what? Me too! I also had pieces of the Liturgy stuck in my head. "Kyrie eleson..."
I still seem to have "repetitive record syndrome"....every Sunday I hear something "new" and it sticks "...holy GOD, holy MIGHTY, holy IMMORTAL.." that's what is "stuck" this week...
:)

[Iacobus]

I still seem to have "repetitive record syndrome"....every Sunday I hear something "new" and it sticks "...holy GOD, holy MIGHTY, holy IMMORTAL.." that's what is "stuck" this week...
:)

I love the Trisagion. What a powerful prayer AND piece of music! Some Sundays we sing that and the power of it just about knocks me down. :bow:

[xenia]

Wow James, what a great story! I too also smelled incense at odd moments, like a whiff of heaven.

-Xenia

[Matrona]

This is too weird! I've had that smelling-incense-at-odd-moments thing, too! Even if it's been close to a week since I've been to church and I'm wearing totally different clothes, and I'm not anywhere near where someone would be burning incense, I'll catch a whiff of it for just a second. I have never had much of a sense of smell--I am usually the last to smell food going bad in the refrigerator, etc. But at random times in random places, I'll catch the scent of incense. This happened a LOT when I was an inquirer/catechumen, but I never told anybody before because I was afraid they would think I was crazy.

[Suzannah]

This is too weird! I've had that smelling-incense-at-odd-moments thing, too! Even if it's been close to a week since I've been to church and I'm wearing totally different clothes, and I'm not anywhere near where someone would be burning incense, I'll catch a whiff of it for just a second. I have never had much of a sense of smell--I am usually the last to smell food going bad in the refrigerator, etc. But at random times in random places, I'll catch the scent of incense. This happened a LOT when I was an inquirer/catechumen, but I never told anybody before because I was afraid they would think I was crazy.Everyone knows I'm crazy so I'm not afraid of being accused...:scratch:
But I do want to tell you that if you're crazy and the rest of us are crazy, I hope they never find a cure....
Incidentally: I don't much sense of smell left either...too many years at sea working on boat engines with fuel and the fumes...
wierd huh???:confused:

[MariaRegina]

Everyone knows I'm crazy so I'm not afraid of being accused...:scratch:
But I do want to tell you that if you're crazy and the rest of us are crazy, I hope they never find a cure....
Incidentally: I don't much sense of smell left either...too many years at sea working on boat engines with fuel and the fumes...
wierd huh???:confused:

I've been Orthodox since Lazarus Saturday, 1996, and yes, at times I do smell incense or the beautiful aroma of sanctity when I pray to the Theotokos at home or even in the car going to or coming home from church.

One we were coming home from church and my husband, my son, and I all smelled an exquisite aroma of heavenly flowers -- and it wasn't springtime, neither did it smell like those artificial fabric softeners used in dryers. No, it was so delicate and we didn't sneeze like we would do if it was earthly.

Another time we were watching a video tape of Myrna. She is the Melkite Catholic (her husband is Antiochian Greek Orthodox) from Syria who has holy oil streaming from her face. As we watched that video, our whole living room became like a Church with the smell of incense and fresh flowers -- indescribable. Again, we are located at least 25 to 30 minutes from any Orthodox Church. The Antiochian Orthodox Bishops investigated her case and believe that it is authentic. Since her husband is Orthodox, she falls under the Orthodox jurisdiction also according to Syrian customs.

[Photini]

Wow...I've also caught the *whiffs* of incense on occasion.
I also remember my son mentioning this. One time he walked into the living room, and out of the blue said, "Momma, it smells like prayers in here." (I had explained to him that the incense is like our prayers rising into the heavens.)

[Eusebios]

Suzannah et al.
Awesome testimonies, have you ever thought of sharing them on a wider level?I will post my long and winding oddesy sometime soon.
His unworthy servant,
Eusebios.
:bow:

[Michael the Iconographer]

I will write my conversion story, as I have been trying to do for the past 5 years since I was chrismated. It may take some time, but once written I will post it here. I hope no one starts yawning during the 2nd paragraph of it.
Michael

[Photini]

I will write my conversion story, as I have been trying to do for the past 5 years since I was chrismated. It may take some time, but once written I will post it here. I hope no one starts yawning during the 2nd paragraph of it.
Michael
I am looking forward to it....and also for yours Eusebios.
I recently had a "Christian drifter" ask me for my conversion story, along with a couple of others who have seen me in GA and a couple of other places around here. I am feeling the gravity of such a thing, as I don't want to say anything stupid that would turn them away. I guess that's why I've been putting off the detailed version of my story for a while too.

[Michael the Iconographer]

I am somewhere near 1/5th done with my conversion story. Wow there is alot of explaining to do here!

[Suzannah]

Iconographer and Eusebios: I cannot stand the suspense....Patience is not a virtue of mine!!!
Cant wait to read your stories...
Love,
Suzannah

[Michael the Iconographer]

Ok, here we go. Part One of my conversion story, I hope I don't catch anyone snoring during this:

This story has been a long time coming. I guess I am writing this more for my own memory than for anyone else’s reading. I hope those who do take the time to read this get some kind of good out of it. This is basically the story of how a person who intellectually knew the Catholic Church inside and out, tried real hard to live a good Catholic life, and spent one year in seminary would leave the seminary after only a year and eventually become an Orthodox Christian. If you told me 10 years ago that I would be writing this story, I would have told you that you were out of your mind, but here it goes…

I have always had a very deep faith in God. I needed to in order to make it through childhood. I won’t say I lived a rough life growing up, I just didn’t get along with very many people and although I was spoiled and taken good care of materially I didn’t really get along with my parents that well and didn’t have all that many friends. In high school I did well in religion class, carrying A’s and B’s in it all the time, but I didn’t want my religion teacher to like me at all. He was a charismatic Catholic and while I understood what he was teaching, I didn’t see it as being cool to be catholic, even though I was in a Catholic school, so I gave this air of questioning things.

Prior to attending college at UT I was never into the liturgical rubrics of the Catholic Mass. This changed the first time I went to Mass at UT’s “Corpus Christi Catholic Community.” The priest, Fr. Jim Basic, did not wear a chasuble, just the alb and a stole for Mass. This alone was enough to make me question whether or not I was actually at a Catholic Mass the first time I went to Mass in the student union. Maybe I was at an Episcopal or Lutheran service? Unfortunately, I was not. This was the first time I ever had to question whether or not I was at a Catholic Mass. It seemed Catholic, but it also seemed to be missing quiet a bit. Fr. Basic was a self described liberal who equated himself as being more in line with a liberal Lutheran Minister than with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. By the time I met Tim through CFL (next paragraph) and a few other friends of his, I had already begun to suspect some things were missing from the Mass. This was the first major step in the direction of Orthodoxy for me, because it made me start to question the things which were going on during the Mass, which forced me to learn a lot about the Mass in order to bring up objections to the staff at Corpus Christi Parish. The staff of the parish, needless to say, didn’t much care for any objections me or any of my friends raised, and eventually some time during my sophomore year of college I was told “If you don’t like the way things are here, you are free to leave and go elsewhere.”

In the winter of 1993 while I was a freshman at the University of Toledo (UT), some friends of mine and I formed a pro-life group called “Collegians for Life”. “Collegians for Life” (CFL) was a loosely knit group of college people who were pro-life, with just a handful of really pro-life people doing most of the work. CFL introduced me to a guy named Tim, who I would become quite good friends with for the next 4 years of college. It was Tim who started to get me thinking about my Catholic faith. Through these discussions of the Catholic faith Tim and I formed an offshoot of CFL called the “St. Justin Martyr Catholic Apologetics Group,” Justin Martyr for short. Justin Martyr met on Friday nights, usually once a month, at a local priest’s house where we would read Karl Keating’s Catholic Answers tracts and would discuss the faith. Often our conversations would veer into the Modernism of the Catholic Church and who we thought were good priests and where to go for good masses and what translation of the bible had the least feminist language in it. Justin Martyr also served as a good forum for discussing the very liberal and un-rubrical things which would go on at Corpus Christi Parish on campus. Because of the Justin Martyr group meeting for two or three years, I developed a pretty solid foundation in my faith.

One Friday early in September 1993, Tim asked me if I wanted to go to Mass the next morning at the Monastery of the Visitation which was just down the street from UT. Mass was at 7 am, and I had gone with him to mass many times when a freshman, and afterwards we would often go out to eat with a very intelligent and lively older gentleman, Jim. I had to get up at 6 am to go to Mass and I stood outside the dorm waiting for Tim to pick me up, but he never showed up. I wasn’t going to waste waking up at 6 am for nothing, so I walked the 2 or so miles to the monastery and made it to mass somewhere near the “Agnus Dei.” After mass I explained to Jim that I was late because I needed to walk to mass because Tim never showed up to give me a ride and asked Jim if he would mind dropping me off back at the dorm. Jim excitedly said to me “You walked to mass! Sure, I will give you a ride back, but first, are you hungry?” Jim and I had breakfast as we would do almost daily for the next 2 ½ years and discussed the faith, politics, philosophy and things I was learning in school. When he dropped me off at school Jim gave me his business card and told me to call him at 6:30 am any morning I wanted to go to mass. I asked Jim how often he went to mass, and he responded “every day.” The next day I called him at 6:30 am, and the day after that as well. This went on until the spring of my senior year of college and we formed quite a deep friendship and in the process I learned a lot about my faith in God. He bought me a set of missals and many books to read on my faith, we discussed the Catechism in great detail when it was released in the fall of ’96 and we discussed the effects of modernism on the Catholic Church. I will never forget the day a few months before he died when Jim said to me “What are we going to do when there is no longer any good masses to go to? It might not happen during my time, but I guarantee you will see that day during your time?” This question deeply disturbed me because I already had a hard enough time finding a traditional mass in Toledo, aside from the small monastery where the cloistered nuns insisted their mass be prayed well and consistently.

While at the University of Toledo I changed majors from Pharmacy to European History, which in the end would prove very useful in my conversion to Orthodoxy. When I look back at it now, there should have somehow been a minor in Pro-life studies because most of my time not spent studying was involved somehow with CFL. I was not doing well in the Math and Chemistry and at the same time I was doing very well in History classes which I was taking for fun. Because I studied German history and had done so since 5th grade, I needed to take some Russian history classes as well because Russia’s history is very closely tied into that of Germany, and has been that way for the past 300+ years. The professor of Russian history was a man born in Moscow who had spent time in the prison camps in Siberia for his part in one of the anti-communist uprisings in Eastern Europe, Professor Jakobsen. In teaching Russian history Jakobsen taught a little about Orthodoxy because Orthodoxy is part of the very fabric of Russia. Jakobsen taught his classes about icons and iconography, about St. Andrei Rublev-the famous iconographer, about why Russian Churches have cupola’s, about the Old Believer Schism and about Peter the Great and his wanting to westernize Russia and Orthodoxy among other things. This was my first real exposure to Orthodoxy. Prior to this I was never really sure if the Orthodox and the Greek Catholics were separate or one in the same. I knew there was some sort of schism between the two, but as most Catholics I viewed Orthodox as being schismatic Eastern Catholics and didn’t know there was actually a good deal of difference between the two. I also got a taste of Orthodoxy the summer before my senior year of college while on exchange in Darmstadt, Germany. There is a small chapel in Darmstadt that the Czar of Russia built for his daughter who married the Grand Duke of Hessen Germany. At the same time I had a friend in CFL named George who had been trying to teach me a little about Orthodoxy. He was Antiochian Orthodox and wanted me to attend a Divine Liturgy with him, which I kept telling him I would one day. Eventually, that day came.

On the eve before Pascha 1996 George called and asked if Joanna, my ex-girlfriend, and I wanted to attend Pascha liturgy with him, which began at 11 pm. I called Joanna and she said she would pass, but I told George I would be interested in attending. It was at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Sylvania, Ohio. The liturgy lasted until 2am in the morning, and Bishop Dmitri was there. It was the most beautiful liturgy I had ever been to. It struck me how everyone sung the Paschal Troparion over and over again. “Christ is Risen from the dead, Trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs restoring life” After liturgy Bishop Dmitri passed out red eggs and was exclaiming over and over again “Christ is Risen!” It struck me at the time that this bishop really did believe that Christ was risen and that he was filled with such joy over it being Pascha. This was the type of liturgy I had always longed for as a Roman Catholic. It was authentic and spiritual and not full of modernist nonsense. I didn’t really know what was going on during most of the liturgy, being it was my first, but I came away with a good sense that I had found something good. Little did I know that 3 years later to the day I would be Chrismated an Orthodox Christian.

By the time I went to Paschal Liturgy with George, I had become a very, very conservative, Pope loving, traditionalist Catholic. I was impressed with the Legionaires of Christ, who seemed to be the Pope’s defenders. I had read every “Catholic Answers” tract there was, and most of the good Catholic books on defending the faith and on personal conversion stories. I had listened to hours upon hours of tapes by Peter Kreeft, Karl Keating and Scott Hahn, had been to two “Defending the Faith” conferences at the University of Stuebenville and had met all three of these men. I had listened to hours of Bishop Fulton Sheen’s tapes. I had even begun to read the Apostolic Fathers of the Church. Looking back now it seems this was where the first cracks began to form in my Catholic Faith. St. Ignatius of Antioch fascinated me. His description of the early Church was exactly what I had been looking for in the Catholic church and was not finding. The thing that most struck me as odd about St. Ignatius is his description of the episcopacy of the Church, Where the Bishop is there is the Catholic Church. This was a very different view of the Catholic Church that I knew, the view that the whole thing centered round the Pope. That summer I would pray a prayer to St. Peter, asking him to pray for me, that I might be guided me to the true faith. I was not prepared at all for the answer which God would give me. But first, I must talk about Jim’s death and seminary.

The rest of the spring of my senior year of college went very quickly from there on in. Jim died not long after of a massive heart attack. While I felt the pain of his death at the time, I didn’t really feel the pain until that fall when I wrote a paper about his death for spirituality class in seminary. What was supposed to be a 10 page paper on how an event in our life was effected by all of the dimensions of spiritual development turned into a 32 page paper on how the death of my friend totally changed my life. The funeral mass for Jim was a down right disgrace. The priest did everything liturgically wrong that I could ever think of, and it literally drove me nuts. I wanted his last Mass to be a beautiful celebration of his faith in God, instead it was a deep wound which I would later have to work through. I continued to attend daily Mass after Jim’s death, and continued to have breakfast with my friends to discuss the faith, but I knew at that point my time in Toledo was over. Prior to Jim’s death I had applied to the Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and began the formal process of being accepted into seminary. Jim was excited about my attending seminary and did a lot to encourage my preparations for this move. My dad did not want me to attend seminary, he thought I was only doing it to avoid some things in life, and rather wanted me to go on to study Theology in grad school and teach theology. He thought I would probably be much happier doing that, and in hindsight he was probably right. But, I did not listen to my wise dad, and instead I fought a hard long fight to get accepted into the Diocese. It was not easy to convince the Vocations Committee of the Diocese that my conservative and pro-life views would not in any way threaten those Catholics who do not hold those views, but some how God saw me through the whole process. God even directed me to St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pa even though I would have much rather attended Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland or St. Charles Boromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, Pa. I had the choice of Mt. St. Mary’s or St. Vincent’s and I decided to let God make the decision for me. I told the Diocese that I wanted an application for Mt. St. Mary’s and the application the Diocese sent me was for St. Vincent’s so I decided to just attend St. Vincent’s. At the same time I had been so touched by the experience of the Paschal liturgy that I was beginning to think that I might want to be bi-ritual Roman and Byzantine. I even had my parents buy me a few small mounted icon prints for my seminary room. That August I found myself at St. Vincent Seminary, in Latrobe, Pa. I had no idea what I was about to experience.

[Suzannah]

"To be continued..."

I can't stand it!!! Wonderful story Michael!!! Can't wait for the next installment!
:clap:

[Michael the Iconographer]

I have to write part II. It may take a few days.
Michael

[MariaRegina]

I have to write part II. It may take a few days.
Michael

Very good introduction. Proper editing takes time. Better to be safe than sorry, so please don't rush it. You did leave us with a cliff hanger!
:D

[OrthodoxDragon]

Here I go:

Most of my mothers family was Russian Orthodox but my mother was Catholic. She married an athiest and when I was about 6 years old he sent me to a Pentecoastal Church. I left that when I was 8 because I KNEW that was not what I was to be. I didn't go to church for several years and then started going to Catholic Mass, and started to become a devout catholic. But after awhile, something was ary with that as well, so I just stopped going to church all together. I have always held an interest for Orthodoxy. I just never persued it. After a while of just kinda being "there" so to speak religion wise the worse thing that has ever happend to be happend. My son was murdered. And for a long while I was very angry with God. And then a year later my mother died. This sent me into a turmoil that I could not bear so I turned to God, and now most recently turned to Orthodox. It took me awhile to find a church and now I'm on the look again for a church that is good for me, but now that I'm on the path of the Ancient Way I don't know why I didn't go on it sooner...

[Rilian]

My prayers that you find peace OrthodoxDragon, it really grieves me to hear what you've gone through.

[twosid]

I'm sorry. :( Tomorrow I'll try to write more, I really will... it's just difficult for me to write about such deeply personal things, even when I badly want to share them. Right now I gotta go to bed, but I promise I'll wrap this up really soon! :)
I wish you would finish your story. You write really well and I want to know the rest....please....

[Umut]

Wonderful stories everyone:

I'll tell you the basic reason as to why I converted...

After getting a basic overview of the religion, I liked it, and I took Andreas' word for it. I also took into consideration that Christ allowed people to convert as soon as they saw Him, and the people learned more afterwards...

I trusted this, and I still have a lot to learn. I'm getting over the atheist thing, because there are too many faults and blank spaces in atheism...

[Michael the Iconographer]

Part II of my conversion story is showing itself to be much harder than Part I was to write. Please be patient with me.

[Matrona]

I am so, SOOOOO sorry I've been so slack with my story... arrrgh! :sorry: :sorry: :sorry: I started this story on Clean Monday and it's now almost Pentecost! But I thought this would be a good distraction from things that have been happening to me in real life that have sort of brought me down. When I get depressed, I like to look back on happier times, or tell jokes, or do something crazy like paint each of my finger and toe nails a different color. Well, I don't have any jokes, and I'm out of nail polish, so happier times it is.

Wait... I got one joke...

Q: Where do gardeners send their mail?

A: At the compost office!

Hahahaha. Yeah, I know... gimme a break... ;)

This part details my first visit to the church which later became my regular parish and is where I was baptized. The priest there is the father of the Nice Boy who I met at OCF. Nice Boy is one of my really good friends and being the one who introduced me to Orthodoxy, he's the reason that the positive events in this story happened. Thank you, God, for making that guy. :)

Anyway, two weeks after my visit to the other parish, Phil (Nice Boy) offered to take me with him to see his dad's church. I accepted, even though this church's services started earlier and I would have to go to matins in addition to liturgy.

So at 8:00 AM that Sunday morning, he came rattling up in his car (sorry, Phil) and we rode to the church. Now, this church is tiny. When I mean tiny, I mean, really, REALLY tiny. But the funny thing is, this didn't really register consciously in my mind or bother me--which is strange, because, unfortunately, I tend to be a very follow-the-crowd type of person, and normally being in such a small group of people would have bothered the heck out of me. This is one of the times in my life where I truly believe I was being guided and influenced by the Holy Spirit Himself.

I stood next to Phil's mom for the service. She helped me know when to stand up and sit down, and didn't even admonish me for checking my watch every five minutes. (Hey, it was 8 in the morning, and my fervent wish for sleep was battling quite fiercely with my spiritual hunger...) At the other church, I'd been towards the back so I had mostly ignored the icons, but here, since there was no one in the way, the icons were impossible to ignore.

But one icon in particular captured my attention--the Theotokos on the iconostasis. Her face looked strikingly REAL... and she seemed to be staring through me. Also, maybe it was the lack of sleep, but she almost looked like she was pulling her Son away from me. (This is part of the reason I became fascinated with St. Katherine later on, although her experience was a little different.)

Right then, I had a bizarre feeling I would have never expected... that I was in my present state unworthy to even stand before the icon of Christ Pantokrator, and that I was fortunate that I had happened to stand on the Theotokos's side... :eek: And it was at that time I felt like I was going to have to keep coming to Orthodox liturgy, you know, I wasn't going to just drop this like most of the other stuff I get interested in and fall away from.

Since that experience, I feel like my spiritual growth has been like a plant. When it seemed that the Theotokos was telling me to stay at that parish, that was when I was planted, a seed, in the garden, and She covered me with soil. Ever since, I began germinating underground. My first root came later that day, when Phil introduced me to the congregation (however small it may be!), and the warm smiles and introductions.

Another was, a few weeks later, on my third visit to the parish. I really felt like I 'got' the liturgy that day, and when Father introduced me again after the liturgy, it was another root holding me down. Realizing from here on that joining the Orthodox Church HAD TO HAPPEN at some point for me, I started reaching for the sky. Icons and intercession of the saints were no problems for me. I didn't start kissing anything or anyone until after I was a catechumen--but I wanted to, starting after that third liturgy. I just hadn't plucked up the courage.

But my favorite thing about my period as an inquirer was one wonderful day when I woke up, shrieking, out of the blue, in my room, and scared the hell out of my roommate. I realized I had finally broken the ground's surface and emerged as a little sapling. That was the day I realized that God and Jesus were no longer abstract figures for me, but that through attending the Orthodox services, I had finally acquired a love for God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons of one essence. By learning to understand Him through the Orthodox Church, learning the real meaning of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection, all for the very first time in my life, I had finally managed to become a real, honest, genuine believer! For the first time, I realized what it means to genuinely love God! And the best part was, I was DOING IT!

And when you are a teenage girl who has fallen in love with the most perfect guy in existence, who wouldn't shriek for joy?

:)

[Momzilla]

:pray: that was worth waiting for!

[MariaRegina]

Excellent post Matrona.

[Matthias]

How did I get to be here? My story is a little weird. I first discovered the Orthodox Church through a computer game! It was called SWAT 3: Elite Edition, and one of the missions involved saving several priests and clergy from terrorists who had taken over a gigantic and beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral.

Let me tell you; after making my way "inside" the cathedral, I saw nothing but beauty; the icons, images; everything about it. (If anyone would like some screenshots posted; let me know!). I thought to myself: "This is just a computer game, surely the a real Orthodox cathedral isn't this beautiful!". I was wrong...

I went to Google, looked up Orthodoxy and their beliefs, and the rest as they say, is history. All I can say is; had I not bought that PC game, I don't think I would be where I am right now. Even if my English teacher did refer to Orthodox as "a strange bunch of people" in one of my classes. Pfffft to her...

[prodromos]

:D :D :D

See, violent computer games are good for you

[Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta]

Hi, all! This is my very first post here, and I thought I'd start off by sharing a little bit about my present journey into Orthodoxy. Notice I say "present" because I'm not yet a catechumen (but I reeaalllly want to be!). I first heard about the Orthodox Church about 2 1/2 yrs. ago. I was a member of a Christian message board, and one day a friend I'd met there told me she'd become interested in Orthodoxy. My interest was peeked, and she invited me to join an Orthodox message board that was specifically set up for inquirers. Well, I was totally fascinated! I had definitely become disatisfied with various Protestant denominations and was pretty much convinced there were no "true" churches left. Well, I visited an Orthodox parish in the area I was living in at the time and was very impressed. Unfortunately, shortly after that my life became fairly chaotic (long story) and I had to relocate out of that area (back home with my parents, actually...a HUGE test of faith). My life was in disarray for a while, and my parents don't live near any Orthodox Churches, so I ended up putting Orthodoxy on a shelf.

Fast forward to late december 2003. Even though I liked Orthodoxy, I was determined there just had to be an "easier" way (protestantism had caused me to become spiritually lazy). I visited a local church and was so disgusted by what I saw there that I *knew* I had to get myself back to an Orthodox Church. Well, I found one to go to, allbeit an hour or so drive away. I've been attending for a few months now and truly feel I've found the True Church! I'm reading various Orthodox literature/writings of the Holy Fathers and such, following a daily prayer rule, and *trying* to participate in the Chruch fasts. I'm very excited about my journey, and would greatly appreciate your prayers! May God bless you all for sharing your faith!

[Matrona]

Hello Elizaveta! Welcome to The Ancient Way! :clap: :clap: :clap:

[Rick of Wessex]

Hello, Elisaveta! Welcome :wave:

(If anyone would like some screenshots posted; let me know!).

Sometimes the Holy Spirit acts in very unusual ways when it is time to bring people back home. ;)

But please do post the screenshots if you can, Matthias. I'm really curious about this virtual cathedral. Do you know whether this cathedral is a digital rendering of a real-life church or entirely computer-built?

In XC,
Rick

[Oblio]

Welcome to TAW Elisaveta :wave:

[MaRiNa_Orthodox]

How are you all Doin? I am so happy to come across such a wonderful forum. I am Serbian and always taught that in USA and other countries there aren't Orthodox ppl, until i came here(to Canada) :) I am so glad that ppl convert to Orthodox Christianity, and since I don't speak English that good, i'll just try to say a few words and I hope U understand me. You guys have no idea how happy I am to hear your stories. My family, being Serbian and coming from communist families, didn't know anything about religion as well, until some things happened in our lives. I am glad that they "see again" and that I am raised as and Orthodox Christaian, since they never had that chance because of their parents. So I just wanna say that yeah, becoming and being Orthodox is hard and u'll have lots of temptations and lots of troubles, but it sure is worth it. As my dad says:"When I became religious, everything bad started happening to me, as if devil wanted to break me apart!" My dad...always right.:) well,God be with u and don't give up. It's a hard way up but I am sure if you kep going, you'll never fall down! (I don't know what to put on the end but i'll put May God be with u, or Zbogom in Serbian).

[Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta]

Marina, Welcome!!!:wave: I'm glad you've joined us!:clap: I'm sure we can all benefit from your thoughts and experiences. Don't worry about the English language thing too much. English is my first language and even I have trouble sometimes!:doh:

[The Prokeimenon!]

Well, I posted this as a response in another thread. Rather than type it twice, I figured I'd just cut-n-paste it here. My conversion story:

Moses the Black, what was it that lead you away from your former church?

Well, nothing lead away from my former Church, so much as I was lead to The Orthodox Church. Not to get hung up on semantics

Rather than give you the whole play by play, I'll try to make it brief

I was raised as an Ind. Fund. KJV Baptist. I stopped going to Church altogether at age 19 and became an alcoholic. When I came to myself and saw the pig-pen that my life had become, I decided to turn my life around. With the help of my parents, I checked into a Christian rehab farm, run by an Independent, Fundamental, Bible-believing, premillennial, hard-preaching, soul-winning, etc etc etc Baptist Church. I was dedicated becoming sober, repenting, and doing the will of God. I read the Holy Bible, cover to cover (KJV of course).

I went on a tour of fellow independent Churches with a Gospel singing group to raise money for our ministry. It was there that I noticed how many different interpretations of basic doctrines there were among people who are supposed to believe in the same book (and in the same translation of the same book). I was told that the Holy Spirit would speak to my heart as I read the Scriptures, and He would teach me the meaning of His Word. Well, bottom line is, either this doctrine is wrong, or the Holy Spirit is schizophrenic- because nobody I met believed the same things as the other.

For example: One preacher says "Repentance is necessary for salvation", another says "No! Repentance is a work! We are saved by faith, not works" and yet another says "repentance is necessary, but it's not really a work." Pretty soon the Bible verses start flying back and forth. It got ugly sometimes

I knew of the Orthodox Church from a friend who had converted after a paralyzing car accident. When I got home from the farm, sober and desiring to do God's will, I talked to him about it. We had talked many times before about Orthodoxy, but I was either drunk or didn't care. This time I listened.

At my first Orthodox service after coming home, I told the Priest I wanted to be a Catechumen, which is a person preparing to become Orthodox. Incidentally, my future wife was standing in line behind me and overheard me talking to the Priest. We struck up conversation and the rest is history

I read a ton of books. I prayed. I studied history. Orthodox history stretched all the way back to the Apostles. I found "The Trail of Blood", a tract which charts Baptist history, to be, quite frankly, poorly written fiction. I saw the doctrines of the Orthodox Church were the doctrines of the Apostles. And all those verses that remained un-highlighted in my Bible suddenly made sense in the context of Holy Tradition. It was that same Holy Tradition that decided which books were truly Scripture. If I believed Scripture, I had to believe Holy Tradition. Without one, there cannot be the other.

Most importantly, I found that it is in the context of the life of the Orthodox Church that salvation is found. Not just salvation from Hell, but salvation from sin!! For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (Rom 8:2) This salvation is not a "say a prayer and believe" kind of salvation, it is a life-transforming salvation. It is the crucifixion of ourselves daily with fasting and prayer. It is Life.

I was received by Holy Chrismation into the Orthodox Church April 26th, 2003.

My mom had a terrible time with it. I assured her, as I assure you now and any other Baptist who may read this, that Orthodoxy for me was not a rejection of my childhood Faith, but the fulfillment of it. I am so grateful to my Baptist Preachers and Sunday School teachers who taught me to love Christ and read His Holy Scriptures and memorize them. Without that seed of Truth, I would have never found "The Church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." (Eph 1:22-23)

To Him be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen

Moses

[MaRiNa_Orthodox]

Thanx Elizaveta(You have such a wonderful name:))! You guys make me happy really! It's kind of hard for me to talk like Orthodox Christian in English, hehe, cuz I go to Serbian Orthodox Church where priests don't know English so the service is all in Serbian and I don't know how to say the names of the saints and people from the Bible in English, but I'll try my best;) Thanx a lot again! God's peace be upon you!

[Suzannah]

Thanx Elizaveta(You have such a wonderful name:))! You guys make me happy really! It's kind of hard for me to talk like Orthodox Christian in English, hehe, cuz I go to Serbian Orthodox Church where priests don't know English so the service is all in Serbian and I don't know how to say the names of the saints and people from the Bible in English, but I'll try my best;) Thanx a lot again! God's peace be upon you!
Hii Marina!!!!
:hug:
I go to a Serbian church and we are almost all converts from America, England, Ireland.... our services are in English....maybe if you have trouble here with English names, I can help you....
The only Serbian I know is a little bit from the Liturgy...but I would love to learn some Serbian. Maybe you could help me learn a little bit? Like how to say: Hi!!!! Welcome!!! So glad you are here!!!! :)

:hug:
Love,
Suzannah

[Michael the Iconographer]

The long waited for second part to my conversion story....(part 1)

Before I discuss what happened at Seminary, I must discuss the conversation I had with a man in the computer lab at UT late one evening which lasted for many hours. I was in the computer lab doing some class work and chatting on the internet when a guy started to discuss the Catholic Church with me. I think I remember his name was Gene. I could tell from the outset of this conversation Gene was a very traditionalist Catholic. We discussed all of the liturgical abuses which have crept into the creation of the Novus Ordo (New Order/Post Vatican 2) Mass, and also the abuses which crept into the old Tridentine Mass in the 50’s and 60’s. I agreed with him on these points. He then went on to say some things like certain bishops and cardinals were secretly masons and that made them invalid and while I forget most of his arguments, his final point was that the See of Rome was vacant. He believed the entire Roman Church to be in heresy and doubted they had valid orders. I had known there were quite a few Catholics who believed like this, and they called themselves “Sede Vacantists” (meaning “The Chair is Vacant”), but I had never met anyone like this before. At this point the conversation had reached well into the early morning, and I told him I was willing to grant him everything which he said if he could answer one question for me. My question was this: “What about the Bishops of the other 6 rites of the Catholic Church, especially the Byzantines?” He could not answer this question and eventually we parted ways. Now this whole long conversation is not what is important to this event, what is important is that when I got in my car I was so confused that I prayed. I said a prayer to my most favorite saint, St. Peter, and praised him as being the Prince of the Apostles and asked him to pray for me that Our Lord might lead me to the True Faith, whether that be the Catholic Church or that be found elsewhere. I thoroughly expected the answer to be “the Catholic Church is the True Apostolic Church,” but at the same time there was this little nagging doubt in the back of my mind which reminded me that the Orthodox also claimed to have valid Apostolic succession and to be the keepers of the Apostolic faith.

Seminary life at St. Vincent was like the beginning to the book A Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times and it was the worst of times. I must give credit to the Benedictine Monks at St. Vincent, they treat the seminarians very, very well. I had a very comfortable room to stay in, ate very well and had some very challenging professors while at St. Vincent’s.

The first semester of seminary studies went fairly well. Except in latin, my grades were very solid. I learned a lot in my classes, especially in the Spirituality class which I will mention later. There were the usual bumps in the road, but it was challenging, and I made quite a few new friends. I made a number of very good friends while in seminary, Tom who later became a monk and took the monastic name Anthony, Rob who was studying for the Diocese of Wheeling as well and also left the seminary a year after I left, and Roberto and Adrian who are both now priests for the Arch Diocese of Atlanta. My spiritual advisor in Seminary was Fr. Justin, who was the seminary spiritual director. Fr. Justin is a bi-ritual Roman-Maronite Benedictine Monk, and he did a very good job in directing me during seminary. As I will explain later, both he and the rector, Fr. Tom, did a very good job during the year which I was there in directing my faith. However, the relationship which I formed in seminary which would be the strongest and have the most lasting impact on my life is the one which I formed with Peter, my icon teacher.

During this best of times, the first major cracks started forming in my Roman Catholic faith. The first major crack formed during the intercession of spirituality class one Wednesday afternoon. One of the students in class named Hien said something errant in class, and during the intercession while we were all in the dining hall having a snack Tom said that what Hien said was heresy. At this point I nearly blew my lid. I used to think that everything that was said which was errant was heresy and by the time I had come to seminary I began to realize that things which were said in error were not heresy, just erroneous statements. Another large crack formed during another intercession period for spirituality class when we were discussing the topic of sacraments which we had been talking about earlier that morning during Catholic Faith and Culture class. Tom asked at what point a marriage was a valid marriage, and then he and Roberto and I got into the discussion of when the sacrament actually takes place during the ritual of that sacrament. I remember being completely turned off by this conversation and thinking in the back of my mind that the legalism and scholasticism that Rome employed in its teachings had gone far enough. Thus, legalism is the second major crack to form in my then Catholic faith. St. Thomas Aquinas is not the 4th person of the Trinity. He is the one responsible for the whole legalistic outlook of the Catholic Church, he and St. Augustine. They both took this hard line view of everything has to be done according to the rules, much like the Jewish Pharisees did. There is no black and white. There can not be. What may be good pastoral advice to one situation might be a disastrous idea to another. Our relationship with God is not based on rules, it is based on faith, love and perseverance. That is why I reject the protestant idea of being "saved instantaneously". Salvation is a lifelong journey with Christ. That journey will have ups and downs and might even have spots where we regress instead of progress. But it the end the journey with Christ should move you considerably closer to God. You can not make hard fast rules to set boundaries for that relationship, which is what the Catholic Church often attempts to do. The counseling of my Orthodox priest who understands this very idea is what has kept me in both good standing with the church and what has kept me working harder at getting closer to God. These were the first two major cracks that formed in my Catholic faith.

About the second week of seminary I began taking an informal icon painting class with my teacher, whose name shall remain unmentioned here. I have always loved art and had begun to develop this interest in iconography, so I figured the class would be fun. I had dabbled in many other types of art prior to this class, and was a fairly good artist in my own rite. I did not know when I began the class in the fall of 1996 that 8 years later I would still be painting icons and that the class would serve as the doorway into Orthodoxy for me. But it did. My Icon teacher is not Orthodox, he is Catholic, but he believes as the Orthodox do when it comes to icons and did a very good job teaching me about iconography. I took the class that fall and wrote the icon of the Archangel Gabriel, and then took the class during the spring semester and wrote an icon of the Theotokus and then took a week long seminar that summer and wrote the icon of St. George. After leaving seminary I continued to paint icons (although they were not very good at that time because I didn’t have much direction) and then when I moved to Pittsburgh in 1999 I studied with Peter for an additional 2 years. When I first began taking the class in iconography I was introduced outside the class to Fr. Athanasius, who is a Bi-Ritual Byzantine/Roman Monk at St. Vincent’s ArchAbbey. It was Fr. Athanasius who began to teach me the Orthodox faith, although because he is Catholic he referred to it as the Byzantine faith. Fr. Athanasius would bring me photo copies of sections of books on iconography and on the Orthodox faith. When my icon was completed, he brought his stole, holy water and chrism and blessed the icon of Gabriel for me. During Great Lent he took me to Pre-Sanctified liturgy with him on Wednesday nights. By this point, I was clearly on a road which would lead to Orthodoxy.

[Michael the Iconographer]

Of the classes which I took during the first semester of Seminary, the class which would have the greatest impact on me was the one on Spirituality, which was taught by Dr. Susan Stangle. At first, Roberto, Tom and I did not know if we should trust Dr. Stangle. We did not understand why we would need a class to teach us about spirituality. However, after the first couple of classes it became quite clear that she knew what she was talking about and that she was not trying to push liberal Catholicism on us, which was our greatest concern about her. For spirituality class, 1/3 of our grade came from two essays which we needed to write on different spiritual people. For my first essay I chose St. Ignatius of Antioch, who by that time had become a favorite of mine. I had read his apologies many times and had taken a pretty good grasp on what he taught. For that essay I got an A. I can’t remember who I did the second essay on, but I got an even higher A on that one than I did on the first. By the time we had all given our essays, only one topic was left which no one had chosen: iconography. Being that I already had a solid A running in the class, I did not want to chance hurting my grade. I struck a deal with Dr. Stangle that I would do the essay on Iconography and if I got a better grade than the ones I already had the grade would stick, but if I got a lower score the grade would be thrown out. As it turns out, I got a much higher A than either of the previous grades, and that essay eventually evolved into the paper which I had published in WORD magazine Dec. 2000. But this was only half the reason why that class was so worth while.

The other part of Spirituality class which really stuck with me was the final paper which we had to write. That paper was 2/3 of our grade. The entire class we spent discussing the idea of the Spiritual realm and all of the arenas in the spiritual realm which went into the formation of ones relationship with God. We read a number of texts on the spiritual life, including He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek, a bi-ritual Roman-Byzantine priest who had been imprisoned by the Soviets for many years and during that time learned the true meaning of prayer and spirituality. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. For the final paper, we had to choose an event in our life and apply all the areas of spirituality which had been discussed in class to that event and show how God had used it to further our relationship with him. I chose my reaction to the sloppily prayed funeral of my friend Jim Schoen. When I was about 2/3 of the way done with the paper I took it to Dr. Stangle for her to proofread and she told me it was a nice paper but she would only give me a B on it. At that point, the paper was already 15 pages long, and the minimum page count had to be 10. She said if I wanted an A I had to address the real problem. The real problem was not with how the priest handled the funeral, although my reaction to that was certainly part of the symptoms. The real problem was my letting go of such a great influence in my life. The writing of this paper did much to teach me about spirituality, the role God plays in forming our lives and the role we play in forming our relationships with God and others. The paper ended up being 33 pages long, and I ended up getting an A on it and for the class. But what is most important is that I began to understand an area of Christianity which I had never understood before nor wanted to understand. As I look back at this now, it did a lot to push me in the direction of Holy Orthodoxy.

The second semester of Seminary was not nearly as easy as the first one.
The second semester might very well be called the worst of times. I began having migraine headaches every day, and began loosing interest in most of my classes, except of course the extra-curricular iconography class which I was taking. I also began to seriously question my Roman Catholic faith. As Great Lent set in for 1997 I began to attend the Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts with Fr. Athanasius every Weds night after Mass. About this time I also stopped attending Sunday Mass altogether at the direction of my spiritual director. I had told Fr. Justin during spiritual direction one day that I was attending Mass on Sat night and Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. His response was that I had to choose one or the other because by attending both I was saying that neither is adequate and so I needed to attend both, where in fact both are completely valid Liturgies in the eyes of the Catholic Church. And so I chose the Divine Liturgy over the Mass, even though I was still attending daily Mass with my seminary brothers. During this period I also made it quite clear that I was openly questioning whether or not I should remain Roman Catholic, become Bi-Ritual Roman-Byzantine Catholic, or just totally convert to being Byzantine Catholic. I did not realize that God would eventually ask me to accept that what I really wanted was Orthodoxy.

I am not going to relive all of the pains of those 5 long months of the second semester of seminary. To me they are still painful at times, but I think the details would put most of the world to sleep. They were stressful times and lonely times to me. Yes, I had many friends there, but it is also clear that I had upset quiet a few people. I became very caught up in Iconography and the Byzantine church and nearly to the point of disgustion with the Catholic Church. What I will say is that as May came along it was becoming clear to me which direction I was headed in. I thought I would stay another year, at least long enough to earn a second BA, this time in Philosophy, before I was forced to make up my mind. Obviously God had other intentions. During that semester we had to undergo peer evaluations, which were a very unchristian way of doing evaluations. The day I was given my peer evaluation my spiritual director was off campus. Looking back at that now, I realize he was probably off campus that day to avoid having to confront me with the scandalous peer evaluation which I was given. There really is nothing new under the sun, so why should it surprise me that he tried to wash his hands of such outrage? During that time period the rector and I had discussed what path I should take, and he could see I was leaning greatly in the direction of the East, so when the other two members of the Seminary Formation Committee voted that I not return he went along with their decision. He later told me he had the power to veto their decision but in my case he thought I belonged in the Byzantine Church. I was not given this information until about a month after the seminary school year had let out, while I was already doing my summer internship at my home parish. At first when this information was relayed to me first by the Diocesan vocations director and then later the Seminary Rector I felt let down. Then I realized I was free to make my mind up about what I should do next. As William Wallace’s father said to him in a dream in the movie Braveheart: “Your heart is free, have the courage to follow your heart.”

To quote Dr. Seusss, “Oh the places you will go!” That fall I got a job in Columbus and moved in with an old high school friend and began my new life on my own. Upon moving to Columbus I made a decision to attend the Byzantine Catholic church there, St. John Chrysostom, and not one of the Roman Catholic ones. This is despite the fact the Roman Catholic Churches were much closer to me than the Byzantine Church which was a good 25 minute drive for me. I learned a lot while attending St. John’s for a year and praying with the people there. The priest was a short bearded man named Fr. Eugene who reminded me of icons of St. Nicholas. Fr. Eugene did a wonderful job educating his parish on how to be “Byzantine” and he did much to teach me about Orthodoxy.

[Michael the Iconographer]

I would probably have been content with St. John’s if I had not been introduced to Dennis Bell and my future wife Patti. I went to Dennis to seek further instruction in iconography, but what I received was an Orthodox faith. Dennis insisted on discussing Orthodoxy and my standing in the church every time I would call or visit him. He probed my faith and helped me to question why I was still Catholic and what was holding me back from becoming Orthodox. Shortly after these discussions with Dennis began I met Patti. I met Patti shortly after I had petitioned to have my “ritual” in the Catholic Church formally changed from Latin Rite to Byzantine Rite. Little did I know I would abandon this petition because 9 months later I would be received into the Holy Orthodox Church. I tried to explain to Patti that I was Byzantine Catholic which is Orthodox under the Pope. She did not buy it one second. Her attitude was (and still is) a person is either Roman Catholic or they are Orthodox, but they can not be both. Her accusing me of being a fence sitter really hit hard to me. She would attend Divine Liturgy with me on Sundays, but made it clear to me that I really needed to make up my mind what I was. Was I Catholic, or was I Orthodox? The last time I took communion in a Roman Catholic church was at my Grandmother’s funeral in October 1998, and I did such out of respect for my deceased grandmother. Shortly after this would be the last time I received communion in a Byzantine Catholic Church as well.

In the fall of 1998 I moved up to northern Ohio to be closer to Patti and I searched for a good Byzantine Catholic parish to attend. I could not find any. They all seemed to be Roman Catholic parishes with Icons and the Divine Liturgy. I drove back down to Columbus one day and presented Fr. Eugene with my dilemma and his response completely caught me off guard. He told me to attend St. Theodosius OCA Church in Cleveland. I told him I could partake of the Eucharist there because I was not Orthodox and his response was that I should do as I needed to do. Patti and I attended Divine Liturgy at St. Theodosius a Sunday or two later and the people were all very welcoming. The priest Fr. Jason invited me to “marinate” in Orthodoxy and see how it fit and not jump to any decisions. When I told Dennis of our visit I told him we liked our experience at St. Theodosius, but that it was too far of a drive for us. Dennis said he had written some icons for a church in Lorain and that I should go talk to it’s priest, Fr. Basil Stoyka.

I called Fr. Basil and explained to him the situation I was in and that I was seriously considering whether or not I should be Chrismated an Orthodox Christian. He invited Patti and I to meet with him after Saturday night vespers. When we went to meet him he explained some of the various things about the Divine Liturgy and we discussed some of the differences between Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church. He invited us to Liturgy on Sunday and to come back the following Saturday night to continue our discussion of Orthodoxy. At this point it was late October or early November 1998. He also gave me a stack of books to devour. I won’t go through the boring details of every article of faith which I struggled with or every bright revelation of Orthodoxy which I realized while studying the faith. I will point out one such moment however that does stand out to me. The feast of the Baptism in the Jordan earlier that year as the Troparion was sung “At your baptism in the Jordan worship of the Trinity was revealed for the Father spoke and the Spirit came upon you like a dove” was the first time I ever realized this even to be a manifestation of the Trinity. There were plenty of other events similar to this which would follow. Eventually through our discussions it was clear there was only one final sticking point which I had left with Orthodoxy: letting go of the Primacy of Peter. At that time this was a very scary thing for me to let go of. However, you can not be Orthodox and at the same time insist that there is one centralized authority who speaks for the entire Church, just as you can’t be Orthodox and accept many of the teachings which Rome has promulgated in the past 1000 years. This is not the Orthodox way. It also struck me as just a little ironic at the time that I had prayed this prayer to St. Peter about 2 years earlier that St. Peter have God show me the true faith and that I was seriously considering becoming Orthodox. Eventually I just had to take the leap of faith.
After having read almost everything I could get my hands on in regards to Holy Orthodoxy and having spent many hours discussing the faith with priests and laity I made the decision to join the Holy Orthodox Church. I informed Fr. Basil of my desire after Divine Liturgy on The Sunday of Orthodoxy 1999 and Fr. Basil while filled with joy told me that I should spend Great Lent praying over the matter and towards the end of Lent he would chrismate me. He said because I had a Trinitarian baptism as an infant he would not need to baptize me. He also recommended that I request of Dennis that he be my sponsor. What had once seemed like an imposibility to me, namely leaving the Catholic faith in which I grew up, was now very quickly becoming a reality.

I was chrismated an Orthodox Christian immediately after vespers on Lazarus Saturday 1999 at Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Lorain, Ohio. Dennis Bell served as my sponsor and Fr. Basil Stoyka chrismated me. It was a most beautiful service, walking around the church holding on to the priest’s stole and having the Holy Chrism applied to my forehead, mouth, hands, and feet. I was given a pair of icons, one of Christ Pantocrator and one of the Theotokus Hogeditra as well as a gold Orthodox cross to wear. After the chrismation Fr. Basil reminded me that I had not given up my Catholic faith but rather had found the fullness and abundance of the faith in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church. The following day at liturgy I was welcomed with open arms by the people of Sts. Peter and Paul Church.

Looking back at the whole process now, the chrismation was only the beginning. After my chrismation I truly was a neophyte and would begin to learn much about Orthodoxy and how Orthodox do things. The Jesus Prayer which had been a comfort to me since the days of seminary would take on new meaning to me. I learned a lot about liturgy and about praying. I have learned to take very seriously the role I play as an iconographer in helping to teach the gospel and to keep the sacred traditions. I have slowly learned to trust God in all things and to see the Church as a large extended family. I am glad God has brought me home to Holy Orthodoxy. I am glad I can pray in peace at every Divine Liturgy, no matter who is praying the liturgy. It brings me joy that confession is taken seriously because it is to be a healing process for the soul and not just a grocery list of sins. The fast of Great Lent brings a new and much greater joy to Holy Pascha than I had ever experienced prior to my conversion. In short, it is good to be home in the Holy Orthodox Church. I thank God and bless him every day for patiently leading me home.

[MaRiNa_Orthodox]

Iconographer,
You made tears across my face :) thanx for telling us your story. :hug: I am nt converted and now I see what a big thing it is to be born as Orthodox because I never had to go through questioning myself and all the troubles you guys had to go through...but God is worth everything and I am so glad that you have found Him! God bless you!

Marina

[Mary of Bethany]

Hi, all. :wave:


I guess this will be my introduction to TAW. I just joined yesterday. I am also a convert to Orthodoxy. I was chrismated into an OCA mission on Holy Saturday, 2001, taking the name of Mary (sister of Martha & Lazarus), which is my given name also. I live in a Dallas suburb, and work in Dallas, near St. Seraphim Cathedral.

I grew up in a Christian family, very active in the Southern Baptist churches, youth group, choir, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, the whole shebang. After my marriage to a non-church goer, I got away from church for awhile, but after our two sons were born, I joined a SB church in Dallas and started going with them. Later, my husband started attending with us, and he and both sons were eventually baptised in Baptist churches also. By that time, though, I was already feeling the need for true worship which I felt was missing, and had been reading about different denominations and how they worshiped. By 1990, I had become convinced that the Sacraments were real, and I needed them, so I left the Baptist church and began attending an Anglican Catholic church (I didn't know at first that it was separated from ECUSA, I just knew it was "high church"). It was no accident, because it wasn't beset with the cockeyed theology of ECUSA, and was a "safe" place to learn about catholic belief and sacramental Christianity. My whole family was confirmed into that church in 1991. We were in a wonderful parish with a wonderful Priest whom I still consider my friend, but as I continued to read about the ancient Church, other questions began to arise. The "usual questions" - what is the Church, where is it, does it still exist, am I a part of it? This, plus some friends who began a home church patterned after Orthodoxy (though not canonical in any way!) started my interest in Orthodoxy. I knew there were Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox, etc., but that's about the extent of my knowledge.

So once again, I started reading everything I could, and around 1997 started attending some services and classes around the area. I was in a serious auto accident just before Thanksgiving that year which put things on hold for almost a year, but then hubby & I started attending "Orthodoxy 101" classes being held at Holy Trinity GO, which included a Vespers service, so it was very helpful. However, we didn't like that quite a bit of the Liturgy was in Greek, and as incredibly beautiful as their temple is and as much as we liked the young Priest, it just didn't seem quite right for us.

Then I found an OCA mission about 20 minutes away from home, and met the Priest there, who started coming to our home to instruct hubby and I. After several months, he was ready to make us Catechumens, but at that point my husband decided he couldn't leave our Anglican parish - he was too happy there to actually make the move. But we decided (together with both Priests) that it would be best for me to go ahead and convert on my own, so I was made a Catechumen in February, then brought into the Church on Holy Saturday.

It has been a struggle for me, because I'm totally alone as far as family & friends go, and my shyness keeps me from joining into the parish as much as I should. We have a new Priest who has already been very helpful in making me focus on the important things, and quit expecting perfection from myself. So I'm just trying to keep my focus on daily prayers, fasting, confessing, and receiving the Holy Mysteries, and on getting right back up when I fall down.

I love Orthodoxy. I could never worship any other way now, and I'm amazed at the almost completely different understanding of Christianity and my relationship to Christ that the Church teaches, compared to my protestant understanding. I just wish that every Christian would accept Orthodoxy!

Please pray for my husband and two sons that they will find the True Church one day, too.

Mary

[Oblio]

Welcome to TAW Mary ! A wonderful conversion story that you shared. Be sure and stop by the Taverna :yum:

[MaRiNa_Orthodox]

hey!

Welcome Maria(can I call you that way?;)):hug: I hope that your family becomes Orthodox as well. It's very hard to do everything alone, and if you need anything, there's lots of nice people here whom you can ask questions, and I pray for the best for you and your family! God bless you! Byez:wave:

Marina

[Mary of Bethany]

Thank you, Oblio, I'll do that.

And hi, Marina. You can call me anything you want. :D
I had not heard of a St. Marina until today when I was looking for a pic of an icon of St. Mary of Bethany, and came across St. Marina. Can you tell me about her?

[MariaRegina]

Of the classes which I took during the first semester of Seminary, the class which would have the greatest impact on me was the one on Spirituality, which was taught by Dr. Susan Stangle. At first, Roberto, Tom and I did not know if we should trust Dr. Stangle. We did not understand why we would need a class to teach us about spirituality. However, after the first couple of classes it became quite clear that she knew what she was talking about and that she was not trying to push liberal Catholicism on us, which was our greatest concern about her. For spirituality class, 1/3 of our grade came from two essays which we needed to write on different spiritual people. For my first essay I chose St. Ignatius of Antioch, who by that time had become a favorite of mine. I had read his apologies many times and had taken a pretty good grasp on what he taught. For that essay I got an A. I can’t remember who I did the second essay on, but I got an even higher A on that one than I did on the first. By the time we had all given our essays, only one topic was left which no one had chosen: iconography. Being that I already had a solid A running in the class, I did not want to chance hurting my grade. I struck a deal with Dr. Stangle that I would do the essay on Iconography and if I got a better grade than the ones I already had the grade would stick, but if I got a lower score the grade would be thrown out. As it turns out, I got a much higher A than either of the previous grades, and that essay eventually evolved into the paper which I had published in WORD magazine Dec. 2000. But this was only half the reason why that class was so worth while.

The other part of Spirituality class which really stuck with me was the final paper which we had to write. That paper was 2/3 of our grade. The entire class we spent discussing the idea of the Spiritual realm and all of the arenas in the spiritual realm which went into the formation of ones relationship with God. We read a number of texts on the spiritual life, including He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek, a bi-ritual Roman-Byzantine priest who had been imprisoned by the Soviets for many years and during that time learned the true meaning of prayer and spirituality. I would highly recommend this book to anyone. For the final paper, we had to choose an event in our life and apply all the areas of spirituality which had been discussed in class to that event and show how God had used it to further our relationship with him. I chose my reaction to the sloppily prayed funeral of my friend Jim Schoen. When I was about 2/3 of the way done with the paper I took it to Dr. Stangle for her to proofread and she told me it was a nice paper but she would only give me a B on it. At that point, the paper was already 15 pages long, and the minimum page count had to be 10. She said if I wanted an A I had to address the real problem. The real problem was not with how the priest handled the funeral, although my reaction to that was certainly part of the symptoms. The real problem was my letting go of such a great influence in my life. The writing of this paper did much to teach me about spirituality, the role God plays in forming our lives and the role we play in forming our relationships with God and others. The paper ended up being 33 pages long, and I ended up getting an A on it and for the class. But what is most important is that I began to understand an area of Christianity which I had never understood before nor wanted to understand. As I look back at this now, it did a lot to push me in the direction of Holy Orthodoxy.

The second semester of Seminary was not nearly as easy as the first one.
The second semester might very well be called the worst of times. I began having migraine headaches every day, and began loosing interest in most of my classes, except of course the extra-curricular iconography class which I was taking. I also began to seriously question my Roman Catholic faith. As Great Lent set in for 1997 I began to attend the Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts with Fr. Athanasius every Weds night after Mass. About this time I also stopped attending Sunday Mass altogether at the direction of my spiritual director. I had told Fr. Justin during spiritual direction one day that I was attending Mass on Sat night and Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning. His response was that I had to choose one or the other because by attending both I was saying that neither is adequate and so I needed to attend both, where in fact both are completely valid Liturgies in the eyes of the Catholic Church. And so I chose the Divine Liturgy over the Mass, even though I was still attending daily Mass with my seminary brothers. During this period I also made it quite clear that I was openly questioning whether or not I should remain Roman Catholic, become Bi-Ritual Roman-Byzantine Catholic, or just totally convert to being Byzantine Catholic. I did not realize that God would eventually ask me to accept that what I really wanted was Orthodoxy.

I am not going to relive all of the pains of those 5 long months of the second semester of seminary. To me they are still painful at times, but I think the details would put most of the world to sleep. They were stressful times and lonely times to me. Yes, I had many friends there, but it is also clear that I had upset quiet a few people. I became very caught up in Iconography and the Byzantine church and nearly to the point of disgustion with the Catholic Church. What I will say is that as May came along it was becoming clear to me which direction I was headed in. I thought I would stay another year, at least long enough to earn a second BA, this time in Philosophy, before I was forced to make up my mind. Obviously God had other intentions. During that semester we had to undergo peer evaluations, which were a very unchristian way of doing evaluations. The day I was given my peer evaluation my spiritual director was off campus. Looking back at that now, I realize he was probably off campus that day to avoid having to confront me with the scandalous peer evaluation which I was given. There really is nothing new under the sun, so why should it surprise me that he tried to wash his hands of such outrage? During that time period the rector and I had discussed what path I should take, and he could see I was leaning greatly in the direction of the East, so when the other two members of the Seminary Formation Committee voted that I not return he went along with their decision. He later told me he had the power to veto their decision but in my case he thought I belonged in the Byzantine Church. I was not given this information until about a month after the seminary school year had let out, while I was already doing my summer internship at my home parish. At first when this information was relayed to me first by the Diocesan vocations director and then later the Seminary Rector I felt let down. Then I realized I was free to make my mind up about what I should do next. As William Wallace’s father said to him in a dream in the movie Braveheart: “Your heart is free, have the courage