Journey Stories

I was raised in the “Non-Denominational Christianity” denomination. My parents moved our family out to a horse ranch when I was 7 and that’s where I grew up. My family and I were very involved and attended a couple of different churches in Southern Oregon. I was active in the typical protestant worship scene and gravitated towards smaller churches as time went on because I found the larger churches felt more superficial. Before I moved to the Portland area, I started attending a newly formed ... [Read more]

My journey to Orthodoxy began when I was a baby. My great grandfather had immigrated from Greece, and he insisted that all of the children in the family be baptized. We only attended Liturgy a few times growing up so that we could participate in Greek culture. Not one word was spoken about theology. Most of my church experience growing up consisted of attending a variety of Protestant denominations. I would try a new church and get all excited about the one attribute of God that was their focus. ... [Read more]

My journey to Orthodoxy began with taking steps that changed many aspects of my life simultaneously. I left New York and headed for the West Coast, leaving behind my adult children, family, friends, and a busy holistic medical practice of 20 years, but also leaving behind the high tax expenses, congestion, and painful memories! I moved to Las Vegas with my fiancée, Charity, and was planning to attend Naturopathic Medical School in Portland. In Las Vegas I felt unsettled by my new unfamiliar ... [Read more]

Although I made God an afterthought in my life, God had not abandoned me. I had lost my job just before school resumed in fall of my senior year. Yet within a week I found another job: crisis averted. The next week I journeyed 100 miles from home on a motorcycle, my only mode of transportation to the new employee orientation. On the last day of orientation, someone had knocked my bike over while it was parked on the road. I picked it up—now missing a rearview mirror—but the bike wouldn’t start. ... [Read more]

I grew up as an evangelical Protestant. I loved my Protestant church and had no desire to leave it. My conversion began with Dr. John Mark Reynolds, an Orthodox professor whom I admired immensely. In college, I joined a great books program he founded. Without knowing it, I learned many Orthodox ideas through Dr. Reynolds’ teaching and through the books we read, which included many by the church fathers. I also learned to challenge my assumptions and seek the truth - in Dr. Reynolds’ words, to ... [Read more]

I was baptized an Orthodox Christian as an infant in Romania, on Palm Sunday. Romania was under Communism until my teenage years, but it lingered for decades afterwards: a brutal, oppressive regime, with persecution of religion, re-education, and the institution of fear. Despite all of that, by the grace of God, the majority of the people got baptized, buried and were able to say, “Hristos a înviat! Adevãrat a înviat!” (“Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!”) while cracking the red eggs on ... [Read more]

I was raised in a Christian home with my family being in many denominations, primarily Four Square, which to me really just seemed like a blending of Baptist and Pentecostal practices (“Bapticostal” as they say). There was a big emphasis on the Bible and the gifts of the Holy Spirit: speaking in tongues, prophesying, faith healing etc. As a youth, I remember my father talking about how much Christ loved us and that He died for our sins, to save us. So I said “The Sinner’s Prayer” and accepted ... [Read more]

“Do you believe that there is one True Faith? And by that I mean not just that Christianity is true but that there is or can be one right way of worshiping and believing in Christ?” The year was 1999, I was a sophomore at Whitman College. It was a cool spring night and I was sitting on my friend’s front porch. I had been telling him about how I was studying the pluralism of religions in one of my religion classes. I was totally opposed to the belief that there could be pluralism of religions ... [Read more]

You hear a lot in Orthodoxy about how inquirers have to "come and see”—to experience the Liturgy and the spiritual life first—because it can’t be adequately described or written about. You hear that Orthodoxy is experiential; it’s not a list of doctrinal statements to which you intellectually assent from your armchair in your evening gown. I don’t disagree about the nature of Orthodoxy, but I do have to honestly say that “come and see” isn’t how it happened for me. The first time I attended a ... [Read more]

When, as a child of six, my mother was suddenly and unexpectedly taken from our lives as the result of an automobile accident, I distinctly remember wondering why everyone was crying. For I knew from a child's perspective and without a shadow of any doubt that she was in heaven and would be very, very happy there. She had been our compass and anchor in God. Little did I know it would be years before such faith would again fill my heart. Looking back on those intervening years, I can clearly ... [Read more]