But this really begs another question: "Essential" for what? Several factors must be considered when converting to Greek Orthodox Christianity. One is attracted to Orthodoxy in the same way one falls in love. Pretty good. A priest can provide guidance and support to help converts discern whether the religion is right for them. In the first place, Christians believed Jesus to be the true God rather than a semi-god. There most certainly will never be a "Southern" or "Confederate" Orthodoxy".And yet another reason not to join is the hopes of having a base of operations for a goofy political ideology. To the extent, however, one could intellectualize the reasons for converting, he or she would probably summarize them along these lines: In our ever-changing world, in the constant re-design of services and re-evaluation of beliefs, Orthodoxy stands as a mountain of granite, unshakable by fads and movements and political correctness. The first four enjoy special honor due to their antiquity. The conversion of 2,000 evangelicals in 17 congregations "from Alaska to Atlanta" in 1987, recounted in Peter Gillquist's Becoming Orthodox, is only a small window into a larger phenomenon. The Orthodox Church is indelibly marked by the One who is its origin and source. It is precisely this view that elevates Scripture above the church and actually encourages private interpretation that the Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky once called "the sin of the Reformation.". 3:15). Whatever honor Protestants bestow upon tradition, they deny that its authority is coequal with Scripture. Kate Forbes is young, smart, a woman (in the actual sense of the word), but fatally, an orthodox Christian seeking the top office in the land. But they all came together in worship, and were shaped by the same hymns and prayers, the appointed Scripture readings, preaching, and the picture Bible of iconography. On the Path of Love: From Islam to Christianity, Madagascar: Church Opens Huge Complex with Church, Schools, Orphanage, Old Folks Home, Australia: Orthodoxy Fastest Growing Church amidst General Christian Decline. Rich worship taught the faith to literate and illiterate, peasant and emperor, and its essentially the same as our worship today. Sad, very sad. People often assume that most Jews by choice convert because they have a partner or spouse who is Jewish. Whereas Western Protestants want to hear the written Word spoken in the sermon, Orthodox believers want to see it in the visual images of iconsas well as hear it in the spoken word. The Spirit of God himself, realizing the sacramental presence of Christ in the church, speaks to us in tradition. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. And such a journey can only be spoken of from experience. She is conscious of being the true Church founded by Christ. Icons. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among men, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. Needless to say, Rome was indignant; not until the Lateran Council of 1215 did it acknowledge the status of Constantinople. Q&A: A closer look at Orthodox Christians. That is, Orthodoxy's commitment to "right belief" provides a natural link to evangelical concerns. Chrysostom's liturgy says of the Eucharistic sacrifice: "Your own, from your own, we offer you, in all and for all." It is why I think a number of people have a list of groups they have been in here. For them the fundamental schism occurred 500 years earlierin the year 1054 (more about that below). Here are a few reasons from this man's personal reflection. But that was too little, too late. Orthodox believers see things very differently. Becoming Orthodox means being willing to submit to the Church and Her bishops, who might not be interested in ordaining you. Your email address will not be published. The basic framework of services like the Divine Liturgy or Vespers doesnt change much, but every day of the liturgical year provides prayers for saints and feasts that can be added to that framework. This absorbed my attention so much that I was apt to expound my current level of comprehension to anyone who stood still in my vicinity. Why Are Protestants Converting To Orthodox Christianity? As former Campus Crusade staff member Gillquist put it, why have so many "Bible-believing, blood-bought, Gospel-preaching, Christ-centered, lifelong evangelical Protestants come to embrace this Orthodox faith so enthusiastically?" Praise for Surprised by Christ "Surprised by Christ is an autobiography, an intellectual history, and a conversion story, and more than these, conveys a spiritual and theological vision in a message that touches people from many different backgrounds. we'll be happy to answer it! Protestant theologian Adolf von Harnack once described the Orthodox church as "in her entire structure alien to the Gospel and a perversion of the Christian religion, its reduction to the level of pagan antiquity." Others are already involved in a Jewish community. Telegram | In Protestantism there arose the doctrine of sola scriptura. It took awhile because I grasped it through hearing the hymns of the church year, week in and week out. The sum of all parts wont add to the total. We are not seeking to reform or to teach the Church how it should do things, but are rather seeking to be formed by the Church and to learn how we should be doing things as faithful Christians. Here, according to Ronald Roberson's 1993 book The Eastern Christian Churches, is a list of these churches and their approximate sizes: Constantinople, 3.5 million Well, was it so? 1. If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you If they persecuted me, they will persecute you (John 15:18. Can you explain why some former clergy (from non-orthodox backgrounds) can enter without formal orthodox seminary education, while other former clergy (again, from non-orthodox backgrounds) are kept away even after the bishop (he who has the control and power) makes a statement that none may come to the clergy with our formal orthodox seminary? There is an organic quality here, and the thing itself is inexpressibly alive. Unfortunately the Eastern organization is founded on control and power. Each of them had his idiosyncrasies, and they regularly disagreed. Her name is right belief. Such a question cannot be answered through the use of dogmatic assertions or theoretical musings. Conversion means belief and acceptance in Jesus Christ, the God-man, as the Savior of the world. Conversion may be unnecessary if you're open to a Reform wedding: Reform Judaism permits interfaith marriages, though roughly half of all Reform rabbis still abjure officiating at them. Greece, 9 million According to The Saga of Erik the Red, there were Christians among the people whom Erik the Red brought to Greenland to settle it in the late tenth century. Without waiting for a response, Humbert exited the church and declared, "Let God look and judge." Further, the Orthodox reject the idea of inherited guilt; we are guilty only for our own sins rather than for the inborn consequences of Adam's fall. At the time I was so occupied with comprehending this strange thing called Orthodoxy that I emphasized the differences, and was impatient with kindly big-tent suggestions. Rich worship taught the faith to literate and illiterate, peasant and emperor, and its essentially the same as our worship today. For example, if a person goes through a great deal of hardship, sacrifice, and turmoil in order to join the Churchas in the case of former clergy in a different communion, or when ones family does not approvethey might feel that the Church owes them for converting. Its that Orthodoxy still passes on the early churchs knowledge of how to tune in to the presence of Christ. Contact | Affectionate attempts to obscure this quest feel suffocating. He has no good option for dealing with that affection, so hes either sullen or angry. Oden, for example, who delights in referring to his theological method as "paleo-orthodox," is now working on a comprehensive patristic commentary on the whole Bible to be published by InterVarsity Press. Around 2-3 months ago I decided that I wanted to convert to Christianity. One can find people who interpret this ecclesiological exclusivity more leniently; in fact, some would argue that the best Orthodox scholarsGeorge Florovsky and John Meyendorff, to name twowould allow for such leniency. Or again, it is one thing to guard the doctrine of sola scriptura, but quite another to ignore or disdain two thousand years of tradition; surely there is a dangerous arrogance in imagining that we do not need to listen to the wealth of biblical wisdom from the patristic writers. Second, whatever failings Western missionaries might bring to their work, and whether Orthodoxy likes to admit it, many Russians are responding very positively to a clear, contemporary presentation of the gospel by Protestant missionaries. Orthodoxy knows where she stands, and she is in no need to re-define herself. Moreover, evangelicals have some important lessons to learn from Orthodoxy. This period of instruction, discernment and spiritual formation also affords you with the opportunity to develop and strengthen your relationship with the parishs clergy and faithfulthose with whom you will worship in Spirit and truth and with whom you will share in fellowship as a member of the Body of Christ, the Church. The sacraments. Andrey brings us the news about Orthodox Christianity (the form of Christianity practiced by Russians). It depends on where you put the emphasis. Such a question cannot be answered through the use of dogmatic assertions or theoretical musings. My husband had been an Episcopal priest for 16 years, and we had gradually moved from an evangelical-style low church to the more liturgically-fancy high church. Orthodoxy looked like taking that escalator up one more floor. Tom Hanks Legion Media The famous Hollywood actor converted to Orthodox Christianity as an adult. "More than a . Despite its historical estrangement from Rome, from a Protestant theological perspective Orthodoxy is similar to Catholicism at several points. Two points that have been hallmarks of evangelical identity deserve special scrutiny: the relationship between Scripture and tradition, and the relationship between Scripture and the church. (To be fair, we should note that a large number of Orthodox have become evangelical Protestants as well.). The true details behind her Later ecumenical councils at Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451) acknowledged Constantinople as the "New Rome" and accorded it "equal privileges" and "equal rank in ecclesiastical matters" with Latin Rome. Four important areas deserve ongoing dialogue. Early on in the life of the Christian church, the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West began to diverge. As Philip said to Nathaniel, Come and see [John 1:46]. Cyprus, 450,000 I can remember, after Id been Orthodox a few years, developing an increasing sense of tension or frustration. For church membership? I hope so. I responded by writing back: "Because I am committed to key distinctives of the Protestant evangelical tradition.". Also, while evangelicals wholeheartedly embrace the full-orbed New Testament descriptions of the work of Christ (reconciliation, ransom, redemption, forgiveness, adoption, etc. Because everyone has their own presuppositions in which they interpret reality and thus no surprise you'll find people based on these presuppositions won't accept Christianity. On June 16, 1054, Pope Leo IX's legate, Cardinal Humbert, delivered a Bull of Excommunication to the Orthodox Patriarch Michael Cerularius on the altar of the Church of the Holy Wisdom at Constantinople while the patriarch prepared to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, condemning him and his court. Pray for the Lords mercy, and you can find the strength to endure to the end. Step Two: Repentance There is no salvation without repentance. This should trouble evangelicals (as well as other Protestants), especially when it is combined with the Orthodox idea of who constitutes the church and how one enters the church. Nicholas Kim. In the dystopian film,Children of Mendirected by Alfonso Cuarn, a world is imagined in the future where no more children are born, and, as the decades pass, humanity is plunged into despair. Vladimir agreed, in exchange for a marital tie; he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and bring his people to the new faith. Christ is thus "the Offerer and the Offered, the Acceptor and the Distributed," all in such a way that nothing is added to his once-for-all sacrifice on the cross. In fact, what Orthodox converts "vow to accept" diverges significantly from important, basic tenets of evangelical Protestantism. Rather, they are a source of revelation. John 17:14.16). While the Church is certainly Divine in one respect, She is also comprised of human beingshuman beings that can, and do, err. Orthodoxy, advocates suggest, reveals and corrects evangelical reductionism and superficiality. When the media seized on John Paul II's statement, they not only missed his main point, they missed a wider story. Along with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity is one of the world's three major Christian traditions. While discovering the truth of Orthodoxy is exciting, we need to learn a gracious balance when dealing with our friends, family, workmates and others with whom we have contact. While Protestant evangelicals have never agreed on the precise meaning or mode of the sacraments, they have historically emphasized two related truths that diverge from the Orthodox understanding of the sacraments. My husband and I were just Chrismated into the church on Christmas day. Another danger is converting to Orthodoxy simply because it is beautiful. De Maistre, Billington says, was "convinced that Russia was an instrument chosen by Providence for the salvation of Europe." He was "fascinated by the possibility of converting this vast land to Catholicism." He launched a program towards that end. "It was a calling of the soul," Devorah Guilah Koren, who converted from Catholicism with her husband and two children, told me. The Reformers did not reject tradition as a help to wisdom, as a reading of Calvin, Luther, or Wesley easily shows. St. Theophan The Recluse On Spiritual Practice. Through the centuries, theological, geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic factors have combined to differentiate the Orthodox ethos from Western patterns of Christianity. John 6 Comments Cole Knight, a former Anglican, got Baptized in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church. Twitter | All rights reserved. By the end of the sixth century, neither group could speak the other's language. An Orthodox Christian Perspective: Overcoming Difficulties in Life, Church Under Soviet Totalitarianism: Suppression, Resistance and Compliance, St Kassia and Her Creations, Still Heard at Todays Divine Services, The feast of the Most Holy Theotokos of the Inexhaustible Chalice, Why Our Catalogue Is More Than Just an Online Store Selling Church Supplies, The List of Musical Instruments Mentioned in the Bible, The First 40 Days after Death Explained by St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, An Old Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign Has Started to Exude Myrrh in the Diocese of Tula, Complete List of Prohibited Marriages in the Orthodox Church. I had been to the east and discovered something wondrous that I assumed all Christians crave. Hymns like these offer quite a theological education to anyone who comes to services, and if you didnt catch it all, theres a good chance theyre going to sing it two more times. (2 Pet. Administered to infants who are fully immersed three times, baptism effects the "bath of regeneration" by which a person is born again, wholly cleansed from both original and actual sins, and, consequently, saved from guilt and punishment. Recently I worshiped at an Orthodox church in Palo Alto on this celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. Writing a book on Eastern Orthodoxy and working through the manuscript with my Russian students helped me to compare Orthodoxy and Protestant evangelicalism. Handcarved John A. Peck, The Apostolic Mission of Journey To Orthodoxy, On the Path of Love: From Islam to Christianity, Madagascar: Church Opens Huge Complex with Church, Schools, Orphanage, Old Folks Home, Australia: Orthodoxy Fastest Growing Church amidst General Christian Decline. She stands firm on her dogmatic and moral teachings. Many times, inquirers approach the Orthodox Church as a safe haven from controversy and scandal, believing that the Orthodox Churchas the one, true Churchis immune to such things. Yeah, I think Ive gotten it out of my system. Orthodoxy insists tenaciously on the role of tradition which is her very life and builds upon its past, without revisions. On the other hand, there are cases where a person rejects the Church for what I would consider to be erroneous reasons. Put more starkly, Orthodoxy explicitly rejects the historic Protestant idea of sola scriptura. Clearly this stability is found in no other church. Sizable groups of the Russian population are disenchanted with Orthodoxy for a number of reasons. Do we mean essential for salvation? As if this were not quite enough, during the Fourth Crusade, Western forces stormed Constantinople in 1204 and ransacked the Church of the Holy Wisdom, an unimaginable act of desecration from the viewpoint of Orthodoxy.
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