Note: The following is a highly condensed history of my journey through the Christian faith. Not included—but implied—in this account are innumerable conversations, prayers, studies, events, debates, doubts, and struggles which, if included, would make a document of several hundred pages that, not only would no one want to read, but that I would certainly not want to write. Below is all those things distilled down to a manageable and readable document.
I
I was raised attending what at the time was a small traditional Baptist Church with an organ and a choir wearing long blue robes. The congregation sang hymns every week and, on the first Sunday of every month, took Communion “as a continuing memorial of the broken body and shed blood of Christ.” Newcomers to the faith were immersed in the waters of baptism as “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s identification with the death, burial and resurrection of the Savior Jesus Christ.”
My family attended church every Sunday and most Wednesdays. My parents were very involved in the church and I made many friends there, some of whom I maintain contact with to this very day.
Over the years, members of the church leadership came and went. New faces emerged bringing fresh new ideas with them. As the church leadership changed, so did some of the church’s old customs and practices. The choir was replaced with a “praise team;” the hymns with “praise songs.” The organ stayed where it was, but the new music meant a different, non-traditional instrumental accompaniment was needed: a rock band complete with guitars, drums, and synthesizers. As a fledgling musician, I eagerly became involved in the church band and remained so for several years.
Growing up in the Baptist faith, I don’t recall paying much attention to the many other expressions of Christianity. I was aware they were out there, but never concerned myself with discovering how their doctrines stacked up against ours. My feeling was that if they based their faith on the Bible and nothing else—as we did—then they couldn’t possibly be wrong. Any apparent differences between us and them was really about preference rather than truth.
I did, however, at some point get the impression that the Catholics were way off the mark; that they worshipped Mary, the Pope, and the dead saints; that they believed you had to work your way into Heaven, and insisted on reciting pre-written prayers; that they may or may not have believed in Jesus as their savior, but insisted on portraying Him as a cadaver on the cross; and that they didn’t even have Bibles in the pews!
It became our church’s mission at some point to be the contemporary fulfilment of the New Testament church, and eventually our worship body took on a new name in order to identify it more with the “non-denominational” movement than with any particular Christian sect. Still, it officially remained—and remains to this day—affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference.
Through college, I continued to seek out Baptist-leaning “non-denominational,” contemporary worship communities, and, on my return home, went right back to the church of my youth, which had since tripled in size: the nave and the pews were replaced by an auditorium with theater seating. Whatever had remained of the old traditional style was gone.
I stayed with the church and kept up my involvement with the band, which had expanded, both in size and in skill. The church was an active player in the community and was growing dramatically. Grace Community Church was an exciting place to be. Then, in the summer of 2001, my dad, who was chairman of the elder board, found himself in the center of a conflict involving the letting-go of the pastor. It was an ugly episode. The incident brought out the worst in people and divided the church. We all left Grace.
II
I think Mom and Dad began attending Christ the King Lutheran Church, not because they had any particular interest in Lutheran doctrine or practice, but because it happened to be the closest church to their house. I was disgusted with what I had seen at Grace, and kept out of church for a short while. But not for long. Eventually they dragged me to Christ the King and I loved it. It was so different from what I had known growing up. This was a liturgical church, with vestments, stained glass, a pipe organ, candles, and creeds. It seemed so very reverent, so worshipful. Like my old church, Christ the King celebrated Christmas and Easter, but unlike the Baptists, the Lutherans didn’t stop there. Suddenly there were celebrations and observances throughout the year that I had never heard of: Advent, Epiphany, The Transfiguration, Annunciation, Lent, Ascension, Pentecost. And there was a particular color and set of hymns associated with each one. I initially had some difficulty with the Lutheran doctrines of infant baptism and the Real Presence—which are unknown in the Baptist faith—but accepted them as I learned that both have scriptural, theological and historical support.
I had always had a great respect for Martin Luther. I admired his incredible courage and integrity in the face of incalculable pressure from the corrupt and apostate Roman Catholic Church. I saw him as the prime mover in the recovery of a Church that had begun to go astray soon after the last of the Apostles had died, and that had wandered steadily further and further from correct teaching and practice in the centuries that followed. When my parents eventually returned to Grace, I stayed at Christ the King, seeking a purer, more genuine understanding of the Faith as taught by the man responsible for its rescue.
After my second deployment to the Middle East, I did a brief stint back at Grace, where, thinking that perhaps it was an affront to God not to use my musical gifts to His glory, I played in the band one Sunday a month, while attending Christ the King the rest of the month. The band at Grace is very good, very professional, and receives a lot of accolades. I began to wonder for whose glory I was actually playing. I realized after a few months that, in order for Christ to increase, “I must decrease" (Jn 3.30) and that wasn't going to happen as long as I was up on stage.
I went back to attending Christ the King exclusively. I became more interested in the doctrine and history of the Lutheran Church and even considered pursuing ordination in the clergy. I got to know and love the pastors, I became involved in the church as an usher, got married there, and helped out with VBS. I grew to love Christ the King Church and had no reason to consider a move elsewhere, until I was confronted with a very important question: Where is the Church?
III
There were two choices for the churchgoer at Kirkuk Air Base: the contemporary Protestant/Evangelical worship service, or the Roman Catholic Mass. Given the distaste I had developed for the former, I opted for the latter, despite what I perceived as certain theological and doctrinal difficulties. My feeling was that worshipping God alongside Roman Catholics in a liturgical manner similar to what I had become accustomed to did not mean that I had to sign on to their beliefs.
I was immediately struck with how biblical and prayerful the Roman Catholic Mass was. Far from being the nearly pagan celebration that I expected, bereft of any mention of Christ or the Gospels, it was solemn and reverent and filled from beginning to end with Scripture (so that's why they didn't need Bibles in the pews!). I actually grew to appreciate and enjoy the Roman Catholic liturgy and soon got to know the priest, with whom I began to meet on a semi-regular basis to talk about things of a biblical or spiritual nature. We had many fascinating and thoughtful discussions and it wasn't too long before I began to inquire into the particulars of Roman Catholic belief and practice. Turns out, I had been all wrong about the Catholics. I learned that the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the very church founded on Pentecost and that its bishops can actually trace their ordinations all the way back to the Apostles. The Pope—whom, it turns out, they don't worship, nor believe is sinless—is the successor of Saint Peter, whom they recognize as the "Rock" upon which Christ built His church (Mt 16.18). I learned that there is, in fact, a scriptural defense for a lot of doctrines that I thought were flat wrong—perpetual virginity of Mary, purgatory, confession to a priest, sacred tradition, mortal sin—and that the Inquisitions, the Crusades, the campaign against Galileo, pre-Reformation corruption and 0ther stains on the Church were the actions of fallible and sinful people, and were not official policies and positions of the Roman Catholic Church itself.
During my discussions with the base chaplain and in my own personal study of Scripture and other writings, the most astonishing and shocking and compelling discovery I made was that, contrary to what I had grown up believing, according to the Bible itself, it is not the Bible that is the “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Ti 3.15), or “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ep 1.22); it was not to the Bible that Christ told us to go when our brother sins against us (Mt 18.15-20); it wasn’t to—or even through—the Bible that Christ promised to send His Spirit of Truth (Jn 20.21-23).
It was the Church. Not the Bible. In fact, it was the Church that wrote the Bible!
So, of course, this led me to wonder: which Church? Can there be more than one? Can all the bodies of Christian believers actually be the one true Church? Could it be that the Roman Catholic Church really is the Church, as it claims to be? The pieces seemed to fit. The dots seemed to connect. I determined that any church that claims to be the Church, and can show historical backing to support that claim deserved a closer look.
When I returned home, I enrolled in RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults), which is the class that adults take before being received into the Roman Catholic Church. It met late enough on Sunday mornings to allow me to continue attending Christ the King, and from the very start, I made it clear to the deacons leading the class that I was not there to become “catholic;” I was simply searching for the truth. If the truth led me into the Roman Catholic Church, so be it, but that was not a foregone conclusion. It was of some concern to me how Kathryn would respond to the proposition of switching church affiliations, so I wanted to be certain that I knew what I was getting us into. I asked the tough questions, and wouldn’t settle for incomplete or unsatisfying answers. I interrogated those poor deacons relentlessly, and stayed after class when necessary to get the answers I needed.
In the meantime, I read several books and hundreds of articles—both for and against Roman Catholicism. I read the early Church Fathers, and the histories and canons of the Ecumenical Councils, and listened to as many radio programs, seminars, speeches, debates, and podcasts
that I could find. I also attended Mass at least once a week, normally in the morning after dropping Kathryn off at work.
I developed a profound appreciation for the beauty, history, art, and the sense of sacredness within the Roman Catholic Church. I appreciated their esteem for the Virgin Mary (despite behavior that I felt was a touch excessive), the rich monastic tradition, and their celebration of the lives of departed Christians. Nor was there anything like the indifference toward Christ that I had expected: He was at the center of every prayer, every hymn, every move and action.
But in the end, there were certain doctrines and practices that, despite whatever biblical or logical argument might be made to support them, I simply had difficulty accepting: purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, annulment, the filioque, and indulgences, among others. However, I felt that I could somehow learn to live with these if only I could bring myself to accept the one doctrine that gave me the most trouble: papal infallibility.
I focused intensely on this one subject. I read everything I could get my hands on and discussed this difficulty with the deacons. I knew that Christ promised to lead His Church in “all truth” (Jn 16.13), and that the Roman Catholic Church had the pedigree to show that it was indeed this same Church. But I simply could not reconcile the doctrines of papal infallibility or universal papal jurisdiction with the historical record. That Saint Peter was chief among the Apostles is indisputable, as is the fact that Rome held a position of honor within the early Church, but nowhere in the Patristic writings, or the canons of the Ecumenical Councils, or even in the writings of the early popes themselves could I find any indication whatsoever that the Church of the first eleven centuries had any notion of either of these papal doctrines. The more I learned, the more I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was simply wrong on this key doctrine. I could see no other way.
But how could it be, if this was the Church that Christ Himself promised the Holy Spirit would lead in “all truth,” and against which He assured His followers the gates of hell would not prevail (Mt 16.18), that they could be mistaken on such an important doctrine?
About a week before last Christmas I learned that there is an alternative. There is another Christian Church that claims—and has the evidence to show—that it too was founded on Pentecost and whose leaders, like those in the Roman Catholic Church, can trace on paper an unbroken line of succession all the way back to the very Apostles of the New Testament; This is a Church that shares my aversion to the dogmas of papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction, and that knows nothing of purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, annulment or certain other Roman Catholic doctrines.
I immediately began to immerse myself in study. The more I got to know this alternative, the more it would exceed my every expectation, defy my every prejudice, confound every stereotype, frustrate every norm, and present to me a whole new paradigm of Christian worship, devotion, thought, and expression.
IV
I had been vaguely aware that there were Orthodox Christian communities that typically identified themselves with particular eastern European countries, like Russia, Greece or Serbia. I assumed you had to have -os or -ov at the end of your name to attend these churches, and they certainly didn’t strike me as major players among the legion of Christian movements worldwide. While I could rattle off the names of present-day big shots from nearly every other Christian faith—Graham, Falwell, Dobson, Wallis, Swaggert, Warren, Benedict XVI—I could name not a single Orthodox Christian. Beyond their apparent ethnocentrism, they seemed so mysterious and exotic and inaccessible and virtually unknown. And, frankly, irrelevant.
Boy, was I wrong!
The Orthodox Church has for two thousand years been the “Pillar and Foundation” of the Christian Faith. All other Christian traditions try to trace their family tree back to the Apostles, but none of them—no, not even the Roman Catholic Church—can do so without grafting their branch onto the trunk of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy makes up the second largest Christian group in the world (Roman Catholic 50%; Orthodox 25%; all Protestant 25%)
The short history is this: During the first few centuries after Pentecost, there was one worldwide (i.e. “catholic”) Church, which consisted of thousands of local churches (i.e. “dioceses”), each under the authority of a bishop, who was in communion with all the other Christian bishops; that is, they all held the same beliefs, taught the same doctrine, and partook of the “one bread” (1 Co 10.17). There were occasional defections of those who didn’t agree with this or that doctrine (the Coptic, Armenian and Assyrian churches, for example), but for the most part, there was “one bread, and one body.”
In time, because of differences in culture, language and politics, the churches of Europe and western Africa began slowly to drift away from their brothers in the East until they broke away entirely around the eleventh century. Free from the constraints of doctrinal accountability to their eastern brethren, the western church began introducing dogmatic innovations like purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, and papal infallibility. Eventually, certain European church and political leaders—Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII among them—broke ties with Rome over conflicts of doctrine and practice and established their own church bodies, which over the years further splintered and fragmented, and continue to do so to this very day.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Church maintained unchanged the “faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3); it never needed to be rescued or recovered; it never experienced a Reformation, or a counter-Reformation, or a restoration, or a revival; it is and has for twenty centuries been the living fulfillment of the continuing New Testament Church, the very "Body of Christ."
Of course, I didn’t know all this when I first became aware that there was this alternative to the Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies. In fact I really knew nothing whatsoever about Orthodoxy, but I wanted to learn. So, I contacted the nearest Orthodox priest and requested a meeting. We met and had a fascinating and enlightening conversation. He was raised Roman Catholic and had converted to Orthodoxy (interestingly, I have yet to meet an Orthodox Christian who is not a convert from another strain of Christianity), was ordained and became the priest of a local Greek Old Calendarist parish. He invited me to attend the Liturgy the following Sunday, which I did.
To say that it was the most confusing, unfamiliar and foreign worship service I had ever witnessed is a gross understatement. The entire time all I could think was “Kathryn is never going to go for this!”
However, to say that it was also the most beautiful, holy, majestic, reverent, Christ-centered offering I had ever witnessed doesn’t even begin to express what I saw that day, and what I have seen every time since that day that I have stepped into an Orthodox temple. What I have seen is a Church in which, not only are the beauty and history rich and deep, but the sense of sacredness is on a level I never knew existed; this is a Church in which the Virgin Mary is fittingly honored and the departed saints are hailed as examples and embraced as partners in prayer; which takes seriously and puts into action Saint Paul’s instruction to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Th 5.17), and in which a spiritual discipline like fasting is a vital activity in the lives of the faithful rather than a quaint vestige of a bygone era. This is a worship community in which every prayer, every hymn, every word, every movement, every gesture, every color, every sound, sight, smell, touch, and taste, every action, every discipline, every doctrine, every symbol, every sign is directed with humility and praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If Christ did indeed establish His Church on the day of Pentecost, and if that Church has withstood “the gates of hell” for two thousand years as Christ promised, then it is impossible to deny the very real possiblity that the Orthodox Church is that very same Church, the “Pillar and Foundation of Truth,” the “fullness of Him who fills everything in every way,” the very “Body of Christ.”
V
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would of my own free will ever be attending a liturgical, sacramental church with priests, vestments, candles, incense, and images of saints and angels, I would have laughed. I have been a Protestant all my life and the idea of ever being anything but Protestant was unthinkable to me. This blog will be my attempt to explain not only why my move to Orthodoxy makes perfect sense, but why it was inevitable, and why those of my readers who have not already done so should consider the move as well.
I
I was raised attending what at the time was a small traditional Baptist Church with an organ and a choir wearing long blue robes. The congregation sang hymns every week and, on the first Sunday of every month, took Communion “as a continuing memorial of the broken body and shed blood of Christ.” Newcomers to the faith were immersed in the waters of baptism as “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s identification with the death, burial and resurrection of the Savior Jesus Christ.”My family attended church every Sunday and most Wednesdays. My parents were very involved in the church and I made many friends there, some of whom I maintain contact with to this very day.
Over the years, members of the church leadership came and went. New faces emerged bringing fresh new ideas with them. As the church leadership changed, so did some of the church’s old customs and practices. The choir was replaced with a “praise team;” the hymns with “praise songs.” The organ stayed where it was, but the new music meant a different, non-traditional instrumental accompaniment was needed: a rock band complete with guitars, drums, and synthesizers. As a fledgling musician, I eagerly became involved in the church band and remained so for several years.
Growing up in the Baptist faith, I don’t recall paying much attention to the many other expressions of Christianity. I was aware they were out there, but never concerned myself with discovering how their doctrines stacked up against ours. My feeling was that if they based their faith on the Bible and nothing else—as we did—then they couldn’t possibly be wrong. Any apparent differences between us and them was really about preference rather than truth.
I did, however, at some point get the impression that the Catholics were way off the mark; that they worshipped Mary, the Pope, and the dead saints; that they believed you had to work your way into Heaven, and insisted on reciting pre-written prayers; that they may or may not have believed in Jesus as their savior, but insisted on portraying Him as a cadaver on the cross; and that they didn’t even have Bibles in the pews!
It became our church’s mission at some point to be the contemporary fulfilment of the New Testament church, and eventually our worship body took on a new name in order to identify it more with the “non-denominational” movement than with any particular Christian sect. Still, it officially remained—and remains to this day—affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference.
Through college, I continued to seek out Baptist-leaning “non-denominational,” contemporary worship communities, and, on my return home, went right back to the church of my youth, which had since tripled in size: the nave and the pews were replaced by an auditorium with theater seating. Whatever had remained of the old traditional style was gone.
I stayed with the church and kept up my involvement with the band, which had expanded, both in size and in skill. The church was an active player in the community and was growing dramatically. Grace Community Church was an exciting place to be. Then, in the summer of 2001, my dad, who was chairman of the elder board, found himself in the center of a conflict involving the letting-go of the pastor. It was an ugly episode. The incident brought out the worst in people and divided the church. We all left Grace.
II
I think Mom and Dad began attending Christ the King Lutheran Church, not because they had any particular interest in Lutheran doctrine or practice, but because it happened to be the closest church to their house. I was disgusted with what I had seen at Grace, and kept out of church for a short while. But not for long. Eventually they dragged me to Christ the King and I loved it. It was so different from what I had known growing up. This was a liturgical church, with vestments, stained glass, a pipe organ, candles, and creeds. It seemed so very reverent, so worshipful. Like my old church, Christ the King celebrated Christmas and Easter, but unlike the Baptists, the Lutherans didn’t stop there. Suddenly there were celebrations and observances throughout the year that I had never heard of: Advent, Epiphany, The Transfiguration, Annunciation, Lent, Ascension, Pentecost. And there was a particular color and set of hymns associated with each one. I initially had some difficulty with the Lutheran doctrines of infant baptism and the Real Presence—which are unknown in the Baptist faith—but accepted them as I learned that both have scriptural, theological and historical support.
I had always had a great respect for Martin Luther. I admired his incredible courage and integrity in the face of incalculable pressure from the corrupt and apostate Roman Catholic Church. I saw him as the prime mover in the recovery of a Church that had begun to go astray soon after the last of the Apostles had died, and that had wandered steadily further and further from correct teaching and practice in the centuries that followed. When my parents eventually returned to Grace, I stayed at Christ the King, seeking a purer, more genuine understanding of the Faith as taught by the man responsible for its rescue.After my second deployment to the Middle East, I did a brief stint back at Grace, where, thinking that perhaps it was an affront to God not to use my musical gifts to His glory, I played in the band one Sunday a month, while attending Christ the King the rest of the month. The band at Grace is very good, very professional, and receives a lot of accolades. I began to wonder for whose glory I was actually playing. I realized after a few months that, in order for Christ to increase, “I must decrease" (Jn 3.30) and that wasn't going to happen as long as I was up on stage.
I went back to attending Christ the King exclusively. I became more interested in the doctrine and history of the Lutheran Church and even considered pursuing ordination in the clergy. I got to know and love the pastors, I became involved in the church as an usher, got married there, and helped out with VBS. I grew to love Christ the King Church and had no reason to consider a move elsewhere, until I was confronted with a very important question: Where is the Church?
III
There were two choices for the churchgoer at Kirkuk Air Base: the contemporary Protestant/Evangelical worship service, or the Roman Catholic Mass. Given the distaste I had developed for the former, I opted for the latter, despite what I perceived as certain theological and doctrinal difficulties. My feeling was that worshipping God alongside Roman Catholics in a liturgical manner similar to what I had become accustomed to did not mean that I had to sign on to their beliefs.
I was immediately struck with how biblical and prayerful the Roman Catholic Mass was. Far from being the nearly pagan celebration that I expected, bereft of any mention of Christ or the Gospels, it was solemn and reverent and filled from beginning to end with Scripture (so that's why they didn't need Bibles in the pews!). I actually grew to appreciate and enjoy the Roman Catholic liturgy and soon got to know the priest, with whom I began to meet on a semi-regular basis to talk about things of a biblical or spiritual nature. We had many fascinating and thoughtful discussions and it wasn't too long before I began to inquire into the particulars of Roman Catholic belief and practice. Turns out, I had been all wrong about the Catholics. I learned that the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the very church founded on Pentecost and that its bishops can actually trace their ordinations all the way back to the Apostles. The Pope—whom, it turns out, they don't worship, nor believe is sinless—is the successor of Saint Peter, whom they recognize as the "Rock" upon which Christ built His church (Mt 16.18). I learned that there is, in fact, a scriptural defense for a lot of doctrines that I thought were flat wrong—perpetual virginity of Mary, purgatory, confession to a priest, sacred tradition, mortal sin—and that the Inquisitions, the Crusades, the campaign against Galileo, pre-Reformation corruption and 0ther stains on the Church were the actions of fallible and sinful people, and were not official policies and positions of the Roman Catholic Church itself.
During my discussions with the base chaplain and in my own personal study of Scripture and other writings, the most astonishing and shocking and compelling discovery I made was that, contrary to what I had grown up believing, according to the Bible itself, it is not the Bible that is the “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Ti 3.15), or “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ep 1.22); it was not to the Bible that Christ told us to go when our brother sins against us (Mt 18.15-20); it wasn’t to—or even through—the Bible that Christ promised to send His Spirit of Truth (Jn 20.21-23).
It was the Church. Not the Bible. In fact, it was the Church that wrote the Bible!
So, of course, this led me to wonder: which Church? Can there be more than one? Can all the bodies of Christian believers actually be the one true Church? Could it be that the Roman Catholic Church really is the Church, as it claims to be? The pieces seemed to fit. The dots seemed to connect. I determined that any church that claims to be the Church, and can show historical backing to support that claim deserved a closer look.
When I returned home, I enrolled in RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults), which is the class that adults take before being received into the Roman Catholic Church. It met late enough on Sunday mornings to allow me to continue attending Christ the King, and from the very start, I made it clear to the deacons leading the class that I was not there to become “catholic;” I was simply searching for the truth. If the truth led me into the Roman Catholic Church, so be it, but that was not a foregone conclusion. It was of some concern to me how Kathryn would respond to the proposition of switching church affiliations, so I wanted to be certain that I knew what I was getting us into. I asked the tough questions, and wouldn’t settle for incomplete or unsatisfying answers. I interrogated those poor deacons relentlessly, and stayed after class when necessary to get the answers I needed.
In the meantime, I read several books and hundreds of articles—both for and against Roman Catholicism. I read the early Church Fathers, and the histories and canons of the Ecumenical Councils, and listened to as many radio programs, seminars, speeches, debates, and podcasts
that I could find. I also attended Mass at least once a week, normally in the morning after dropping Kathryn off at work.I developed a profound appreciation for the beauty, history, art, and the sense of sacredness within the Roman Catholic Church. I appreciated their esteem for the Virgin Mary (despite behavior that I felt was a touch excessive), the rich monastic tradition, and their celebration of the lives of departed Christians. Nor was there anything like the indifference toward Christ that I had expected: He was at the center of every prayer, every hymn, every move and action.
But in the end, there were certain doctrines and practices that, despite whatever biblical or logical argument might be made to support them, I simply had difficulty accepting: purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, annulment, the filioque, and indulgences, among others. However, I felt that I could somehow learn to live with these if only I could bring myself to accept the one doctrine that gave me the most trouble: papal infallibility.
I focused intensely on this one subject. I read everything I could get my hands on and discussed this difficulty with the deacons. I knew that Christ promised to lead His Church in “all truth” (Jn 16.13), and that the Roman Catholic Church had the pedigree to show that it was indeed this same Church. But I simply could not reconcile the doctrines of papal infallibility or universal papal jurisdiction with the historical record. That Saint Peter was chief among the Apostles is indisputable, as is the fact that Rome held a position of honor within the early Church, but nowhere in the Patristic writings, or the canons of the Ecumenical Councils, or even in the writings of the early popes themselves could I find any indication whatsoever that the Church of the first eleven centuries had any notion of either of these papal doctrines. The more I learned, the more I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was simply wrong on this key doctrine. I could see no other way.
But how could it be, if this was the Church that Christ Himself promised the Holy Spirit would lead in “all truth,” and against which He assured His followers the gates of hell would not prevail (Mt 16.18), that they could be mistaken on such an important doctrine?
About a week before last Christmas I learned that there is an alternative. There is another Christian Church that claims—and has the evidence to show—that it too was founded on Pentecost and whose leaders, like those in the Roman Catholic Church, can trace on paper an unbroken line of succession all the way back to the very Apostles of the New Testament; This is a Church that shares my aversion to the dogmas of papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction, and that knows nothing of purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, annulment or certain other Roman Catholic doctrines.
I immediately began to immerse myself in study. The more I got to know this alternative, the more it would exceed my every expectation, defy my every prejudice, confound every stereotype, frustrate every norm, and present to me a whole new paradigm of Christian worship, devotion, thought, and expression.
IV
I had been vaguely aware that there were Orthodox Christian communities that typically identified themselves with particular eastern European countries, like Russia, Greece or Serbia. I assumed you had to have -os or -ov at the end of your name to attend these churches, and they certainly didn’t strike me as major players among the legion of Christian movements worldwide. While I could rattle off the names of present-day big shots from nearly every other Christian faith—Graham, Falwell, Dobson, Wallis, Swaggert, Warren, Benedict XVI—I could name not a single Orthodox Christian. Beyond their apparent ethnocentrism, they seemed so mysterious and exotic and inaccessible and virtually unknown. And, frankly, irrelevant.
Boy, was I wrong!The Orthodox Church has for two thousand years been the “Pillar and Foundation” of the Christian Faith. All other Christian traditions try to trace their family tree back to the Apostles, but none of them—no, not even the Roman Catholic Church—can do so without grafting their branch onto the trunk of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy makes up the second largest Christian group in the world (Roman Catholic 50%; Orthodox 25%; all Protestant 25%)
The short history is this: During the first few centuries after Pentecost, there was one worldwide (i.e. “catholic”) Church, which consisted of thousands of local churches (i.e. “dioceses”), each under the authority of a bishop, who was in communion with all the other Christian bishops; that is, they all held the same beliefs, taught the same doctrine, and partook of the “one bread” (1 Co 10.17). There were occasional defections of those who didn’t agree with this or that doctrine (the Coptic, Armenian and Assyrian churches, for example), but for the most part, there was “one bread, and one body.”
In time, because of differences in culture, language and politics, the churches of Europe and western Africa began slowly to drift away from their brothers in the East until they broke away entirely around the eleventh century. Free from the constraints of doctrinal accountability to their eastern brethren, the western church began introducing dogmatic innovations like purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, and papal infallibility. Eventually, certain European church and political leaders—Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII among them—broke ties with Rome over conflicts of doctrine and practice and established their own church bodies, which over the years further splintered and fragmented, and continue to do so to this very day.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Church maintained unchanged the “faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3); it never needed to be rescued or recovered; it never experienced a Reformation, or a counter-Reformation, or a restoration, or a revival; it is and has for twenty centuries been the living fulfillment of the continuing New Testament Church, the very "Body of Christ."
Of course, I didn’t know all this when I first became aware that there was this alternative to the Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies. In fact I really knew nothing whatsoever about Orthodoxy, but I wanted to learn. So, I contacted the nearest Orthodox priest and requested a meeting. We met and had a fascinating and enlightening conversation. He was raised Roman Catholic and had converted to Orthodoxy (interestingly, I have yet to meet an Orthodox Christian who is not a convert from another strain of Christianity), was ordained and became the priest of a local Greek Old Calendarist parish. He invited me to attend the Liturgy the following Sunday, which I did.
To say that it was the most confusing, unfamiliar and foreign worship service I had ever witnessed is a gross understatement. The entire time all I could think was “Kathryn is never going to go for this!”
However, to say that it was also the most beautiful, holy, majestic, reverent, Christ-centered offering I had ever witnessed doesn’t even begin to express what I saw that day, and what I have seen every time since that day that I have stepped into an Orthodox temple. What I have seen is a Church in which, not only are the beauty and history rich and deep, but the sense of sacredness is on a level I never knew existed; this is a Church in which the Virgin Mary is fittingly honored and the departed saints are hailed as examples and embraced as partners in prayer; which takes seriously and puts into action Saint Paul’s instruction to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Th 5.17), and in which a spiritual discipline like fasting is a vital activity in the lives of the faithful rather than a quaint vestige of a bygone era. This is a worship community in which every prayer, every hymn, every word, every movement, every gesture, every color, every sound, sight, smell, touch, and taste, every action, every discipline, every doctrine, every symbol, every sign is directed with humility and praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If Christ did indeed establish His Church on the day of Pentecost, and if that Church has withstood “the gates of hell” for two thousand years as Christ promised, then it is impossible to deny the very real possiblity that the Orthodox Church is that very same Church, the “Pillar and Foundation of Truth,” the “fullness of Him who fills everything in every way,” the very “Body of Christ.”
V
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would of my own free will ever be attending a liturgical, sacramental church with priests, vestments, candles, incense, and images of saints and angels, I would have laughed. I have been a Protestant all my life and the idea of ever being anything but Protestant was unthinkable to me. This blog will be my attempt to explain not only why my move to Orthodoxy makes perfect sense, but why it was inevitable, and why those of my readers who have not already done so should consider the move as well.
Since my first visit to an Orthodox church back in January, Kathryn I have been to several others.* We haven’t been received into the Orthodox Church as of yet, but hope to be someday. It is my sincere prayer that my readers will consider joining us.
"Come and see!" (Jn 1.46)
Matt
6/21/2008
*Other churches I/we have attended include Assumption in St Clair Shores, Holy Transfiguration and the Basilica of St Mary in Livonia, St Petka in Troy, Holy Trinity in Detroit and Holy Incarnation in Lincoln Park.
"Come and see!" (Jn 1.46)
Matt
6/21/2008
*Other churches I/we have attended include Assumption in St Clair Shores, Holy Transfiguration and the Basilica of St Mary in Livonia, St Petka in Troy, Holy Trinity in Detroit and Holy Incarnation in Lincoln Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment