Converts, how did you find Orthodoxy?

I came to Orthodoxy just a few months ago. Instead of re-telling the story I will paste an email here that I sent to one of the podcasters on Ancient Faith Radio. His podcast is called, Approaching the Wardrobeancientfaith.com/podcasts/wardrobe . . . I paste this with some hesitation as it reveals some personal attributes but, it seems in the last week, God has wanted me to open up more to this on-line community. Here goes:

I wanted to write you an email thanking you for your podcast. About two weeks ago, I was struggling with my faith. Long story short, I was praying, asking Jesus, "Are you really real?" I have struggled with alcohol for years, and I have lost faith in any sort of church. While praying I was searching the internet to see what Christians were saying as regards to Jesus and Alcohol. What I found was constant arguing, hateful comments directed towards others on forums, crazy websites, and a few websites that shed some light on the truth, but, ultimately, nothing that really helped me. Fed up, I stopped searching and prayed, "Are you really real?" Why all the fighting and arguing? I'm not sure when it exactly occurred, but I found Ancient Faith Radio. This was like a light house in the distance. I listened to the music for a while thinking that this must be some Catholic website. I've always been interested in the Catholic monastic tradition. Then, searching through the pod casts, I found one by Fr. Hopko about the history of the church which then made me realize that this was an Orthodox site. I didn't really know anything about the Orthodox church. Then, I saw your podcast. Your first one which you had put up the very night I was praying for some sort of direction. I listened to your first podcast and I felt something profound - unexplainable - the best I can say is that it was like finding that piece to a jigsaw puzzle yo u have been searching for forever, and when it fits perfectly in place, that feeling is what I'm talking about. Stepping back I find that the puzzle I started piecing together when I was a boy is coming closer to some sort of full picture. Immediately, after listening to your first pod cast, I searched out a pod cast series on the foundations of Orthodoxy - three days later, I visited the Orthodox church in Seoul (I live in S. Korea). A week after that I attended the church again and pronounced to the Father and the English community that I wish to become a catechumen.

I too am not a convert, but have been seriously looking at Orthodoxy.

How did you find Orthodoxy?
I first "found" Orthodoxy a few years back one Easter when I was visiting my brother in PA. He had a friend who had just recently converted and was invited to the Holy Pascha service. He asked if I wanted to go, and I said why not, even though I had no idea what Orthodoxy was. Needless to say at that time I had mixed feelings when I was in the service.. I thought it quite foreign, and strange. We went a couple more years to the Pascha and Good Friday services, and I've been kinda looking into Liturgical worship ever since. I even use an Orthodox Study Bible that my brother bought for my birthday a few years back when it first came out.

What drew you to the Church?
It seems like things are pointing at the fact that it is the church started by Christ... I am tired of looking at the tree of denominations and everyone making up their own interpretations of scripture... One good example is the "Left Behind" theology of end times... I just never could take how one can take a sentence from this book of the bible, and a sentence on this book of the bible and come up with something like that. I am tired of the entertainment mentality in churches.. I checked out Episcopalian, but they are quickly running away from the scriptures into something pagan, I looked into Catholicism, but the whole idea of the Pope being God on earth just is strange to me.... Orthodoxy just seems like it fits, and is reasonable I guess...

My story may not seem very "miraculous" or special, but, here we go.


How did you find Orthodoxy?

I was baptized as an infant in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. My parents, who are not religious (Dad is atheist, mom is irreligious), did this out of cultural tradition, but also in the hope that it would help me in life.

I was always aware that I was Orthodox, but I was not Orthodox in heart or practice. As a child, I loved churches, and I was amazed by their beauty. I also did pray occasionally, but, for material things. It was an innocent type of faith, but, again, I never asked myself questions about my faith in God. Occasionally, I would blame God and speak blasphemy against him towards the age of 10-11 whenever something wasn't going right in my life.

After becoming Christian at 14, I did not devote myself to the Orthodox Church, but, out of ignorance I became a Protestant because I did not like the idea of faith and works (Just having faith is easier, right?).


What drew you to the Church?

After joining Tumblr, in the list of blogs that one could follow, I clicked the "Spirituality" tab, and saw simplyorthodox, which I thought was really interesting, so I decided to follow her blog. Eventually, I started having discussion with her, and then with other Orthodox Christians like Andrei and Daniel. At first, I didn't have the best of intentions, and I had the impulsive desire to turn everyone around my Protestant.

It backfired.

Orthodoxy has such a strong foundation, and there is such a strong spiritual realization in Orthodoxy that I simply did not feel in Protestantism. I was a theological Protestant, but I never really felt at home, or very comfortable listening to Gospel music between four white walls with a cup of tea, just to listen to an hour long sermon on something very simple. It wasn't my idea of spirituality, but I was under the impression that that was the biblical thing. Eventually, I decided to devote myself to study of the Orthodox Church and Early Christianity. It was a slow process... I started hanging up icons in my room after I was convinced that that was both biblically and traditionally correct, and started accepting Orthodox theological doctrines. Eventually, I was just sitting on the computer one day, wondering about my conversion, and I thought to myself "I believe this... This... And this... Wait. I'm already Orthodox " and it was at that point that I finally made the step to become an Eastern Orthodox Christian. I'm really happy with it now. This is the true church established 2000 years ago at Pentecost, and I do not regret my decision.

I shared my story with Simply orthodox a while ago, I shall repost here for you all to read.

From Catholicism to Orthodoxy is a big change for me, I used to be a devout Catholic attending Mass at least 5 times a week.
I did not go looking for anything new, I was happy as a Catholic, It just happened; the Holy Spirit was calling me to the Holy Orthodox Church.

A couple of years ago I went to the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Piraeus just to look around, while I was there the service of vespers started so I stayed a little, it was very daunting at first, the old women were crossing themselves from the ground upwards what seemed like hundreds of times, it made no sense to me so I left.

From that time onwards I had this nagging voice in my head saying go back. So six months later while I was in the city I went to Saint irine for vespers, this time I stayed until the end and I had enjoyed it, I felt the Joy that I had always felt at mass.
I spoke to the priest there father Thomas the Deacon John acted as translator for us, I asked him many questions, he gave me the book The Orthodox Church, I finished reading it in 2 days.

My eyes had become opened and my heart was searching, I had become aware for the first time that something was missing in the Catholic Church and I had never realized it until that very moment.

I started to read the Matins, the Divine Liturgy, Vespers and the Akathist hymns in English, and I noticed the pure liturgical beauty that was missing in the Mass, These services and liturgical ways had really been preserved in the Orthodox church that the West had lost a long time ago.

I was at last free from the legalistic approach; I was able to let the Holy Spirit work inside of me without constraints. My heart was willing to be changed from the inside.

The Orthodox way is Mystical in a certain way, it isn’t just about going to church, it is a way of life, it is about the Holy Spirit working in you and with you, and Just as it had done with the apostle’s and the church fathers.

Well 2 years later I am a catechumen and will be received into the Orthodox Church in the very near future.

You asked about my conversion story, I believe that there is no end to ones journey in Orthodoxy, even for those born into the faith, every day is a new day and a new experience in ones walk with God. Every day we grow in Christ, we grow in the church and we grow in faith, getting stronger each new day.

You ask! Did I convert to Orthodoxy? My answer is NO, I did not. The Holy Spirit pulled and nudged me, Jesus Passion saved me and taught me how to love, and it was God the Blessed Holy Trinity that converted me. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— Ephesians 2:8 (RSV)

St. Elizabeth the New Martyr is my saint! ;D

I will come back later to add my story.

Haha. Nice to know we are doing some good. Please keep us in your prayers since we are lowly sinners trying to do what we can.

Have you read John Cassian's conferences? They are useful for the orthodox view on Augustinianism.

here is a link to it. I am not 100% sure about the accuracy of the translation since new Advent is a Catholic site and therefore may be translated for a pro-Augustine slant.

Either way: here it is.
www.newadvent.org/fathers/350813.htm

Hello everyone,

Here is my story. :-)

I first heard about Orthodoxy briefly in a Church History course at a Oneness Pentecostal church when I was around thirteen or so. The course taught only a few things about Orthodoxy. We learnt that they broke with Rome during the Great Schism, rejected the Papacy, didn’t accept the filioque, and weren't fond of statues. Being a curious person, who loves reading about various religions, I read a bit more about them on my own. I remember liking the Orthodox view that heaven and hell were just two different experiences of God's love. I adopted a modified version of that view into my Protestant worldview. Then I largely stopped thinking about Orthodoxy for years.

During my teenage years, I developed doubts about the Oneness Pentecostal religion that I was raised in. The two Church History courses that I took really impacted me. It was clear that much of Oneness Pentecostalism was relatively new. Whenever someone tried to prove that there were always a few Christians in every generation that believed similar doctrines as we did, I noticed some suspicious things:

(1) The groups were unrelated and often never had contact with each other. There was a lack of direct continuity in any tangible form.
(2) The groups usually only believed a portion of what we believed. So, there may have been people that believed X, Y, and Z in 1600, but not at once. Group A would believe X, and Group B would believe Y and Z.
(3) These groups often had other believes that were disturbingly heretical or even blasphemous.

Anyway, by sixteen or seventeen, I was convinced that Oneness Pentecostalism was not the religion of the Apostles. Part of me felt drawn to Catholicism and Orthodoxy, though mostly the latter. Nonetheless, coming from a religious Protestant family I didn't act on this feeling. Eventually my discontent with Oneness Pentecostalism, as well as other factors, led me to seriously consider leaving Christianity for another religion. If my parents hadn't fought to prevent me from doing so, I might have left Christianity. Their resistance prevented me from leaving right way, and that left me with time to think about my choice more. I thought a lot about religion in the next few months and decided that I should remain Christian, because even when I was going to apostatise I still could not convince myself to not believe in the resurrection of Christ. (I actually tried to reinterpret non-Christian religious texts to make them consistent with the resurrection of Christ!)

For the next couple years, I remained a Oneness Pentecostal, with varying degrees of fervour, though my doubts still remained. I eventually started looking into Orthodoxy and Catholicism again. I decided, finally, that I couldn't remain Oneness Pentecostal. I became convinced that the Orthodox Church is the continuation of the Church that Christ founded, and the one which the gates of hell cannot prevail against.

I was still a bit hesitant though, since I didn't want to make that big leap into the unknown. So, I decided to try Catholicism first, since it is closer to Protestantism, and went to a few inquirer's classes. Let's just say that those classes convinced me even more that Catholicism was not the true Church. I finally was out of excuses to delay becoming Orthodox. I looked-up the closest Orthodox churches near me, chose one, and then e-mailed the priest to inform him of my situation and that I was coming there to become Orthodox!

I showed-up at the church on the next Sunday. It was certainly a new experience to me, because I had never seen an Orthodox service before. I was in awe. Soon, I began catechism. As autumn rolled around, my priest told me that I would be baptised soon. I was thrilled. Unfortunately, my baptism kept getting postponed.

Finally, the date was set: January18. When I learnt what that date was on the liturgical calendar, I was thankful that God gave me such a confirmation. As a Oneness Pentecostal, I was taught that the doctrine of the Trinity is tritheism and I was strongly anti-Trinitarian. Also, the Christology that I learnt growing-up was wrong. Many critics accuse Oneness Pentecostals of having Nestorian-tendencies. Most Oneness Pentecostal scholars would object to this accusation and insist that they hold a Chalcedonian view of the incarnation. My Church History professor, however, was quit blunt in teaching us that our Christology is indeed Nestorian, and that we should be proud of that.

Imagine! Having been taught anti-Trinitarianism and Nestorianism in my past, it was a big sign to be baptised on January 18. Why? Because that is the Feast of Saints Athanasios the Great and Cyril of Alexandria! St. Athanasios, of course, is famous for defending the dogma of the Trinity. St. Cyril is the great champion of Orthodox Christology. To be baptised on their feast was a great sign of confirmation from God. I am also convinced that those two Saints had a hand in my conversion. I believe they were praying fervently that I would enter the True Church. (This story also explains why my baptismal name is Athanasios!)