Journey Stories

“What cult is my new husband getting himself into?!” That is what I ask myself during my first visit to an Orthodox church, around 2003. Hanging back, I’m in shock and wide-eyed. People are bowing and kissing paintings of people! The incense burns my nose. Despite my discomfort, we stay for a fellowship meal because Brian was there for research. (He was a Theology minor.) “How have I never heard of Orthodoxy? I took church history classes in university!” Brian continues to use school ... [Read more]

I was raised in suburban southern California. We attended the Episcopal church because it had the best private school. I learned liturgical Protestant Christianity, and was taught that Catholicism was bad because, among other heresies, they worshiped Mary. I saw God as a permissive parent: just visit occasionally, pay lip service to loving and honoring him, and do what you want. It was important to FEEL good about God. I was involved with my church’s youth programs, but the impression I received ... [Read more]

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]