Conversions to Orthodoxy
English Flowers of Orthodoxy 1
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY – MULTILINGUAL ORTHODOXY – EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH – ΟΡΘΟΔΟΞΙΑ – SIMBAHANG ORTODOKSO NG SILANGAN – 东正教在中国 – ORTODOXIA – 日本正教会 – ORTODOSSIA – อีสเทิร์นออร์ทอดอกซ์ – ORTHODOXIE – 동방 정교회 – PRAWOSŁAWIE – ORTHODOXE KERK - නැගෙනහිර ඕර්තඩොක්ස් සභාව – СРЦЕ ПРАВОСЛАВНО – BISERICA ORTODOXĂ – GEREJA ORTODOKS – ORTODOKSI – ПРАВОСЛАВИЕ – ORTODOKSE KIRKE – CHÍNH THỐNG GIÁO ĐÔNG PHƯƠNG – EAGLAIS CHEARTCHREIDMHEACH – ՈՒՂՂԱՓԱՌ ԵԿԵՂԵՑԻՆ / Abel-Tasos Gkiouzelis - https://orthodoxsmile.blogspot.com - Email: gkiouz.abel@gmail.com - Feel free to email me...!
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Is There One True Church?
An Interview with Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson—a former Protestant missionary and the translator of several books of Holy Scripture into the language of the Kogi people of Colombia, presently a student at Holy Trinity Spiritual Seminary—tells of his road to Orthodoxy. This is an Interview conducted with him on the pages of Pravoslavnaya Rus’ [Orthodox Rus’] by R. Sholkov.
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RS: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
PJ: I was an Evangelical Protestant from birth. My family attended Baptist and Presbyterian churches, and my parents were firm believers in [the concept of] the “invisible Church,” i.e., [the belief] that there has never been a single church on earth which could call herself the one True Church; i.e., [a church] possessing the fullness of the Truth. All that was necessary was “to believe in Christ” and to attend that church which was “convenient.” But I could never understand why there were so many different so-called churches, all of which considered themselves to be Bible-based?
When I was 12 years old, our community was visited by some preachers who were doing missionary work in Colombia and translating the Bible for the Indians. Because I had always been interested in languages, I was attracted to this work. I was astonished [to learn] that there are thousands of languages in the world into which the Bible has not yet been translated.
I began to study Greek and Hebrew, in order to prepare myself for working in translating the Bible into such languages; and, at the university, I studied linguistics. Later, I joined the Protestant Mission of Bible translators (Wycliffe Bible Translators), in order to obtain a more detailed education.
When I was in training at Wycliffe, I became acquainted with my future wife, Styliana; now we have two sons, Nicholas and Benjamin. Styliana’s parents were missionaries in Colombia, when she was yet 5 years old. They preached among the semi-savage Kogi tribe. Her parents were very happy to receive our (my wife’s and mine) support in this missionary work. They had no time for translations; hence, after our arrival, I began to study both Spanish (which is spoken in Colombia) and the language of the Kogi people, and to translate the New Testament and the book of Genesis into their language. I was also forced to create an orthography for the Kogi, as they had never had a written language.
RS: How did you find out about Orthodoxy?
PJ: Being a missionary, I understood much. The Evangelicals repeat, over and over, that they all have the same identical faith; but each denomination has its own system of belief. Thus, I saw that the missionaries in Colombia pretended to sympathize with the Roman Catholics; but that behind their backs, they hated each other. Each denomination taught in accordance with its own belief-system, but would say, at the same time, that all Protestants nonetheless believe one and the same thing.
I began to think deeply about this—how could we teach the tribes a single faith? when one group would become Baptists, another—Lutherans, a third—Pentecostals. I discovered that each Bible translator, willy-nilly, would translate it in accordance with his own denomination’s world-view. They would say that this “will help the Indians to understand [the Bible] better.” But which translation of the Bible was the correct one? How could we proclaim catholicity? Where was the Church in all this?
Likewise, while I was translating the Bible from the Greek, I noticed that its meaning was distinct from the English and Spanish translations. The Western teaching concerning predestination (Calvinism), which always used to trouble me, did not exist in the Greek Bible. But the English and Spanish translators, willy-nilly, would introduce slight changes into the meaning of the text, in order to imbue the texts with a western and even a Calvinist meaning. I likewise noticed that the other major Protestant doctrines simply could not be Biblical; chiliasm, for example, or the justification of believers by faith alone, although Protestants explain that these doctrines of theirs are allegedly Bible-based!
I began to study Church history, in order to find out precisely whence these heresies originated, and what the early Church actually taught. Protestants, on the other hand, teach that, after the Apostles, God ceased all activity, as it were, for fourteen centuries.
RS: And how did your spouse, who had grown up in a family of confirmed Protestants react to the road along which you had begun to travel?
PJ: She always supported me; even, as it were, nudged me along! When we were wed, we promised each other that we would always seek accord in all controversial issues that might arise. The Truth is one, and we always discuss all questions until we reach an accord. What we cannot agree about is the teaching concerning the Church. Styliana was likewise brought up with the idea of an “invisible Church,” but rejected it. She believed firmly that the Church must be somewhere. It was precisely she who inspired me to find out whether Calvinism has any basis in the Bible. When I discovered that the distorted concept of predestination existed only in the West, and that the Holy Fathers of the East teach about synergy (i.e., the mutually-reciprocal bond between the Divine and human wills), my wife asked me:
“Well, what about the Greek Church, then? Perhaps it contains the Truth?”
My response was the following:
“Which Greek Church? Are you speaking of the Orthodox Church?”
I knew nothing about Orthodoxy, but I had been brought up with the understanding that Orthodoxy is as pernicious as [Roman] Catholicism—even worse, in fact. Thus, I expressed no further interest in the idea.
In the meantime, we were approaching ever closer to Orthodoxy! When we were invited to preach at meetings, I would speak about fasting and the doctrine of synergy. But people did not like what I had to say. I tried to be a proper Protestant and base my teachings upon the Bible, but people would say:
“We don’t care that you can support your words with the Bible, this is still not our doctrine.”
It was apparent that, despite Protestantism’s stand against Church Tradition, they had created their own tradition. We finally figured out that we were no longer Protestants. But we were also not [Roman] Catholics. So what were we? Where was our faith?
When we returned to America for vacation, my wife purchased a used book for 10 cents, entitled “The Orthodox Church.” I immediately read it and was struck by lightning, as it were. I did not know about the seven Œcumenical Councils and about former apostasies. Now, I read about theosis and hesychasm, about St. Gregory Palamas and the Venerable Serafim of Sarov.
This was a new world! But, in reality, it was not new, but distinctively unique; this was the Apostolic Faith. The Truth had turned out to be there, where we had not expected to find It—but [where] It had always waited for us. We understood that Christ had truly built His Church, having said to Peter:
“upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against her” (Matt. 16: 18).
We believed in this as in a verity, even when our families and friends stood opposed to our beliefs.
RS: Now you are studying at Holy Trinity Seminary. What are your plans for the future?
PJ: Despite the fact that there have long-since been Orthodox temples in Latin America, we were amazed by the fact that there is not a single one in Colombia, although Orthodox [Christians] do live there. Likewise, many of our friends and acquaintances in Colombia are interested in Orthodoxy. This is a [Roman] Catholic country, but the Protestants have drawn many to themselves. The majority of [Roman] Catholics would never have converted to Protestantism, had they not noticed that their church is moving ever-farther-away from the Truth. People tell us that they want to find that original Faith which [once] existed among the ancient Saints. Thus, we think that Colombia, like all of Latin America, is a great harvest, which is awaiting its workers.
RS: What would you like to say to our non-Orthodox readers?
PJ: We are disappointed by the fact that at such a time as Orthodoxy is being reborn in Rus’, many false teachings are appearing and polluting Russia. God is one, the Church is one, and the Truth is one. I would advise the non-Orthodox readers to study thoroughly the teaching of the Orthodox Church. Not a single other church or faith can call itself the true Church. Do not depart from Orthodoxy because you see some people in it of little faith. You must not abandon the Truth on account of sinful man. Sinners are everywhere, but true Saints are only [to be found] in Orthodoxy. Do not be afraid to ask questions and to seek the Truth. Then you will be able to say with us:
“We see the true Light; we have found the true Faith.”
*****
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. (St. Paul [The Epistle to the Galatians, Ch. I, vv. 8-9])
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Digital Natives Embrace Ancient Church
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Twentysomethings captivated by Orthodoxy
by Andrea Goodell
Tim Flinders will graduate from Grand Valley State University next month. Raised Lutheran, he also explored fundamentalist Baptism, Roman Catholicism and even Messianic Judaism before converting to Orthodox Christianity this year.
“Orthodoxy has completely transformed me already,” he said. “I feel like the first time in my life I’m growing spiritually.”
Flinders, 22, like many other young people converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, was looking for authenticity and historical accuracy in his Christian faith.
“I had so many different questions that needed to be answered,” said Flinders, who added he wrestled with the many divisions of the Christian church over the years.
He was chrismated Holy Saturday at St. George Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. Chrismation is akin to confirmation.
Recently he attended the second annual Encountering Orthodoxy Conference at Hope College.
The Rev. Deacon Nicholas Belcher, dean of students at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston, gave the opening keynote address, using the themes of holy week to introduce Orthodoxy to the more than 50 who attended.
Eastern Orthodox Easter, Pascha in Greek — the language favored by Orthodox everywhere — fell on the same day as Western Easter this year.
Belcher described the nailing of Jesus to the cross as “one of the most cruel things human beings have ever thought of to do to other human beings.”
Eastern Orthodox Christians, he explained, experience the crucifixion and resurrection in the now during liturgy.
“There is no sense that we are just talking about something that happened a long time ago. It is today,” he said.
Dustin Miller, a Hope senior, attended the conference for extra credit in his history of Christianity class, but said,
“I’ve always been curious about Orthodoxy.”
He, too, said he was looking for the apostolic, historical roots of the Christian church. Miller considers himself non-denominational and said he didn’t know the Hope campus had Orthodox students.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out, trying to find what best fits me,” Miller said.
The Orthodox Christian Fellowship campus club, which sponsored this month’s conference, meets Thursday nights for Small Compline (a short Psalm and evening prayer service). Then the handful of Orthodox students, one seminary student and Fr. Steven VanBronkhorst discuss topics such as biblical foundations for Orthodox worship.
He would like to see more inquirers at the OCF meetings and more students at the second annual Encountering Orthodoxy Conference.
VanBronkhorst was a Reformed Church of America minister for almost two decades before coming to the Orthodox church 14 years ago. Still, VanBronkhorst said, he sees many more today looking for the historical church than when he was doing his own searching.
“I always felt that ideally there should be just one church,” he said. “The Orthodox church is by far the most historically faithful body. … Who is going to deny that the greater part of the evangelical world has the faith? They have faith. What they don’t have is the worship.”
Tyler Dykstra of Holland was chrismated this month.
He grew up Christian Reformed, but says he “wanted more.”
“Over time I started to realize there was so much history I had not known about even though I had gone to Christian schools all my life,” Dykstra, 24, said.
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The Father Of Lights
By Constantine Georgiades
A team of 120 members of the London Robbery Squad arrested me, my builder and electrician in Devon on 17th April 1991. I had to strip, put on white paper suit and wait in a cold empty cell for 3 days and then I was charged with various conspiracy offenses and remanded in custody at Exeter Prison. I had often driven past the prison and had never considered that one day I might be a guest of Her Majesty!
As an ex-policeman, I was warned to ask for the ’43’s’ by the escorting officer, but I really hadn’t understood what that meant. A mistake had been made and I felt sure that it was only a matter of time before I would be released, so I insisted on going on the main wing with all the other men and refused ‘Rule 43’ protection.
News of my arrival travelled fast and I soon had hundreds of men wanting to vent their anger out on me, due solely to the fact that I had once been a policeman. It didn’t matter that I had left some years earlier. As far as they were concerned, I was still a policeman and ‘the enemy’.
Escorted to ‘B’ wing with 2 other inmates I was locked in a cell the size of a bus shelter. After having lived my life in relative luxury up until that moment, it came as quite a shock to have to share a cell with 2 total strangers! It was filthy, no toilet and only the use of a bucket, no sink, little ventilation and poor lighting and the stench of urine and excrement was overpowering.
As he closed the door I heard the Prison Officer grunt “Three more pieces of s*** off the street”. I knew that I had done some bad things in my time, but I never thought that I had deserved to be treated or spoken to in this manner. The three of us remained in these conditions for periods of up to 23 hours a day and trying to cope with the monotony and violence of prison life was difficult.
At first ‘bang up’ seemed like a lifeline to me as it was difficult to kill a man whilst he was locked away in a cell! Although I had a strong physical presence, I knew that I couldn’t defend myself against 600 men and I was gripped with terror. I ate very little for the first three weeks and my weight dropped by nearly 4 stone. The food repulsed me and I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, but my fellow inmate said “If you don’t eat you will die in here”. He was right of course and I had already considered that as one of my options for early release.
I spent the first 14 months on remand walking in my own strength, unable to see my children and being systematically stripped of all my worldly possessions. You can’t keep up your mortgage payments when you are in prison.
Daily I sifted through my food searching for pieces of broken glass and slivers of razor blades and smelling it for traces of chemicals. There are more ways of getting to someone that you hate in prison than you can imagine! I grew more angry by the day at the injustice done to me and I wanted revenge against those who had put me there. I scoured my life searching for answers. Every day I mourned for my son Peter who had died as a baby whilst the family were out shopping and for the welfare of my sons and I kept raking through the ashes of my broken marriage trying to make sense of my life.
The police were able to convince a jury that 2 out of the 3 of us were guilty of at least thinking about committing a crime together and we were convicted and the electrician was acquitted. I received 12 years for conspiring to kidnap and 12 years for conspiring to blackmail with a further 3 years for not having a firearms certificate to run concurrently.
Now being a convicted criminal with a lengthy sentence meant that I qualified for a single cell. I could now use a toilet without being in the company of my cellmates and on the Wednesday following my conviction I went to listen to a visiting speaker from an outside church. The room was packed with prisoners and as I entered they jeered at me. The visitor was a Bishop from Africa and he told us that he had the responsibility for overseeing hundreds of churches. No one thought to ask him what denomination he was and it seemed hardly relevant at that time. “Today I have not come for all of you; just one man and when he hears what I have to say he will know who he is and he will know that I am speaking the truth.” The Bishop went on to describe me exactly. So much so that I immediately jumped to my feet saying “It’s me! I’m the man that you’re looking for!” I went forward and prayed with him and reaffirmed my faith, which, to be quite honest, had been pushed back to the furthest recesses of my mind. I hadn’t even considered that ‘God’ could help me with these problems.
Walking back to my cell that night I had hoped for a bolt of lightning to strike me or to hear the sound of God’s voice giving me instructions, but ‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing!’ An inmate said “Well, what did God do to help you then?” and he laughed. All I could think of saying was “Nothing yet, but I have made a promise to God and I’m going to keep it”. After all, what had I got to lose? I suppose that was the moment when I had made a conscious effort to stop walking and trusting in my own strength and knowledge and I had started my early steps of walking in faith, trusting in God. It was scary and at that point I had no idea how of quickly my faith was about to be tested.
The following day, Gary, a huge drug-crazed Rastafarian called to me: “Copper! Come out here and die!” It was ‘slop out’, a time when the doors open for a few minutes in order for us to empty the toilet buckets. Gary wanted to kill me and he kept calling to me. So I walked out of my cell, looked at him and said “Don’t be stupid, you can’t kill me out here, the ‘Screws’ will see you. Come into my cell and you can kill me in here without any witnesses.” I turned and went back inside and he followed. There were 2 chairs either side of a small table pushed against the wall and I sat furthest from the door and invited Gary to sit opposite me.
He said “But I’m going to kill you!” I said “In a minute, there’s plenty of time. You can do it when we’ve finished our game of backgammon.” We both sat and played and the prison staff, who were having difficulty controlling him, locked us in together.
I told Gary all about my promise to God.
He asked me about my cross that I wore and I told him how I was baptised ‘Constantine’ in the Greek Orthodox Church in Malta when I was 5 years old and showed him my baby teeth marks on the back. I can’t remember who won the game of backgammon but Gary and I shared several hours together. Eventually the doors opened and as he got up to leave he said “I don’t want to kill you no more, man. Pray for me, eh?”
Just before I was transferred to Wandsworth Prison, I was in the Gym and I could hear both volley ball teams plotting to do me serious harm in the changing rooms at the end of the session. I recognised the signs as all the prison staff normally disappear when a planned violent attack is about to happen. Not wanting to wet myself, I went to the toilet. I looked up and said “Listen God, I know that I’m one of your children and if you want me to receive this beating I will, but, I thought that you were going to protect me?” No immediate answer… I shrugged my shoulders and walked back into the changing area where a gang of predominantly black men confronted me.
The ring leader said “Listen ‘copper’ this is not personal, okay. You have to be dealt with before you go to Wandsworth, that’s all. If we don’t do it the ‘Brothers’ in Wandsworth are going to ask why we didn’t. Do you understand?” I said “Yes, of course; get on with it then. But remember this, it’s not me that you are attacking, it’s God. I am one of his children and His Spirit lives in me. If you harm me you are going to have to answer to Him.”
A look of incredulous disbelief and fear shot across their faces and they immediately started to argue amongst themselves about ‘the brotherhood’. Using a ‘shocked’ voice, I said “Are you guys black?” There was a pause “Are you taking the p***?” I said “No, of course not. I don’t see colour, so it isn’t relevant to me, but it’s obviously important to you. If you are black, you must know what it’s like to be victimised because you have been victimised for centuries and it’s cruel. Isn’t it strange that you are now doing that same thing to me! How do you feel about that?” More arguing. “Who are you, cool hand Luke! Why aren’t you afraid of us?”
Gary suddenly appeared from nowhere and stood in between me and the ring leader. He spoke very calmly and to the point. “This is a good man. He believes in God!” He turned to look at me and said “If you gona hurt him, you gotta do me first.”
The ring leaders response spewed out of his mouth “You a f****** brother or what?”
“Of course I’m a brother! He’s a good man. Leave him alone…”
Gary had turned into an angel and I left the Gym unharmed praising the Lord! Gary told me later “You know what they wanted? They wanted your gold cross to sell for drugs on the wing!”
Shortly after that incident I was transferred to Wandsworth Prison and placed on ‘E’ Wing. I shared my cell with a man who had been convicted of murdering 2 people over a drugs debt. I couldn’t lie on my bed as it had been urinated on, so I rolled out my bedroll and lay on top. When he woke up I told him that I was an ex policeman and that I had made a promise to God and I was going to serve Him. He was shocked and said “You’re going to die in here, brother.”
I said “If that’s His will. But I don’t think so. He’s going to protect me”. I could hardly see him in the badly lit cell, but he said “Yeah, right.” During my time at Wandsworth I lived amongst nearly 1,000 convicted criminals and remained unharmed. I wrote to Gary and thanked him for helping me and he wrote me a lovely letter back.
When I was transferred to Maidstone Prison I was put on the long term lifers’ wing. On the same coach were 2 Christian inmates, one was serving life and the other 8 years for multiple bank robbery. I was put in a single cell next to ‘Wolf’y’ another Christian who played guitar and we sang lots of Christian songs together. The men knew who I was before I had got onto the wing, so I thought it best to approach them with honesty. I approached the Probation Officer who had an office on the wing.
“Please can you tell me who runs the wing?”
“Why?”
“I’ve seen it on telly, there’s always a ‘Main Man’ who runs things in these sorts of places”.
“Yes there is. Why do you want to know who he is?”
“I’m an ex policeman and I just want to introduce myself to him”.
The colour fell from his face instantaneously.
“The Governor needs to know about this right away. You are going to die in here! There are men in here who are NEVER going to be released and they have nothing to lose by killing you”.
“That’s OK I’ll be fine”.
“No! They are going to kill you! You MUST get out of here!”
He left quickly and indicated to a man called Terry who was wearing a green and blue track suit top. I approached Terry and I introduced myself to him and we walked to my cell for a chat. I explained my situation and he said “Yeah, I know you’re a ‘copper’. As you’ve been straight with me you won’t have any problems with ‘my men’. The odds of you getting plunged are very high though, so watch your back.”
I knew that there was a swimming pool at this prison, so I said “That’s OK, I’m a good swimmer,” He smiled and said “No stupid, plunged with a knife! You don’t have a clue, do you?” I said “Not really, but I have God on my side.” His smile turned to a grin and he said “You’re going to need Him big time in here, the last guy they didn’t like was disembowelled on the landing in front of everyone last week and 2 others were torched in their cells before him. Good luck!” I was intrigued and asked “How were they torched?” He replied “Petrol, from the lads on the gardens”.
Over the next 3 weeks I sank into the deepest parts of hell and the men tormented me every day with threats and verbal jibes. The Principal Officer on the wing took me into his office and said “I can’t help you if you need help. These are dangerous men. I can’t make you go on Rule 43 but my advice is to transfer wings immediately. The men all know who you are and they are making plans to hurt you”. I said “That’s OK, they don’t mean it and they won’t harm me because God is looking after me”.
I was eventually confronted by 6 angry men on the landing outside my cell. All I could think of saying was “May God bless you and protect you. He loves you all and so do I.” I kept walking. They were so shocked that they were unable to speak or lay a hand on me. However, a few days later one of them threw a bucket of human excrement over me and my cell. I had to throw everything out because the smell was unbearable!
The prison staff, who I think were more afraid of them than me, refused to give me a clean mattress or linen and in front of the other men said “Fresh linen is only issued once a week and that was yesterday. Why do you need fresh things?” They had seen what had happened and the big rule in prison is not to be a ‘grass’ so I said “I have wet my bed”. He said “Well, put it all back in your cell and wait till then”. I refused and spent hours cleaning my cell but I was still unable to get rid of the stench and I ended up sleeping on the steel straps on my metal bed, with no covers, no coat, no mattress and with the window open wide. I was frozen!
Later that week another group of 5 men charged into my classroom on the Education Block. The tutor, Ian, who was running a business studies course was caught in the onslaught. Petrified and shaking he froze to his seat. I stood up and said: “Are all you guys stupid? You can’t kill me in front of a member of staff. Let Ian leave”. I pointed to Ian and said “Look at him, for goodness sake let him go and then you can kill me without any witnesses”.
The ringleader shouted “No, we want him to stay so that he can see what we are going to do to you!” I raised both arms and shouted “Ok! In the name of Jesus Christ, I will take you all on!” He shouted back “We’re Muslims and don’t believe in Jesus as God, only as a prophet.” I said “I know the president of SUFI, he’s a friend and he would not be very happy with you behaving like this. Islam is about unity, love and wisdom, not hatred!” They looked shocked and were unable to lay a hand on me. The alarm bells started to ring and I was detained for disturbing the prison and taken to the Segregation Block for my own protection.
Now segregated from the whole prison, I was only allowed out of my cell when all the other prisoners were locked away in theirs. It was for my protection I was told, but I kept insisting that I didn’t need protection.
During my 1 hour a day legal break from my cell, I chose to take a shower instead of going to the exercise yard. On some days a prison visitor would visit me in my cell. He was locked in with me and we prayed together for my family. I don’t remember his name but God will know who he is for sure.
One evening I stepped out of my cell and the staff vanished. I believe that I was given another spiritual warning of danger. I turned the shower on and pulled the nylon curtain closed and quickly tucked myself away in the sink area. Two men, who I recognised from my wing burst into the shower with knives to attack me but I wasn’t in there. I ran at them from the side and shouted “come on then, in Jesus name!”
They fled in panic running down the stairs and I watched as the Prison Officer let them out.
After refusing continuously to go on ‘Rule 43’ for protection, I was finally spoken to by the No1 Governor.
“What’s all this about. You are causing havoc in my prison and you have to go on Rule 43!” I said “There really isn’t a problem. The men are just a bit unsettled and once they get used to me they will be fine”. He snapped back: “They want to kill you and your problem is that you are just a proud man and won’t go on ‘The Rule'”
I said:
“It isn’t pride, it’s faith. God’s watching over me and everything will be fine, you see”.
He said: “I’m going to have to speak to the Home Office as you are going to die in this prison”. I was told that I was being moved to Channing’s Wood Prison so I made a poster with a large cross on it and wrote my cell number and “I forgive you”. I asked the Prison Officer if I could go to my cell to collect some letters, which were in a plastic bag under my bed and I insisted that I went to collect them personally.
We walked from the Segregation Unit to the wing and all the men were moving about on the landing. When they saw me they all stopped and watched me walk to my cell to collect my letters and on the way out I put up my poster on their notice board. I wanted them to see that I wasn’t afraid of them. When I arrived at Channing’s Wood Prison I had no personal possession at all, only prison property, letters and my cross. I really believed that I was going to die in prison and I had sent all my property out. The only shoes that I had were a pair of old fabric slippers. I was exhausted both mentally and physically and at the lowest point in my life.
Simon, whom I had met in Exeter, was waiting for me outside Reception. He was a Muslim and as I had read his depositions previously, I believe his account of what had happened to him. I said “God has sent me here, Simon!” He looked a bit surprised and said “Why?” I said “I don’t know”. He said “You have to find out why!” and he encouraged me and joined me in my search for the truth and he later became a Christian at Channing’s Wood.
He asked to be baptised, so I referred him to the Chaplain who refused and told him to wait until he was released. So he asked me to baptise him on the wing, which I did according to canon of the true Church. I told the Chaplain what I was going to do and asked him to join us, but he refused saying: “If I start baptising the men in the bath on the wing, people are going to think that I’m insane!” So I carried on baptising the men on the wing according to the canon of the Church.
At this time I had no contact with an Orthodox Priest and I acted in faith according to the Great Commission. On some weekends we baptised between eight And twelve men at a time. We fasted and prayed regularly together and our group grew and we met in an area behind the gym, a place we named ‘Apostles Corner’. Men were surrendering needles used for drugs and handing in satanic material used for witchcraft, which I destroyed by fire in the Chapel and prayed with the men for forgiveness of sins.
Simon and I joined a Business Studies Course and we were asked to speak on any topic of our choice. I chose ‘Life’ and when I had finished talking the whole class clapped loudly. From that moment on members of the class asked for help and more and more inmates approached me asking for prayer and help to find God. The Chaplain allowed me to use one of their offices to talk to the men and to pray with them.
They gave me a job as a ‘Chaplain Orderly’ and I believe that God used me to talk to the men and minister to their needs. Although the men would come and speak to me they were not prepared to go to the normal western church services, which frustrated ‘The Team’.
Whilst praying in my cell one night, I pleaded with God to show me what He wanted me to do.
“Make it simple,” I said, “because I am not that bright and I just don’t understand what You want me to do.”
When I finished praying, I looked at my watch and it was 11.00pm. I turned the light off by pressing on a calendar which covered the light switch and climbed into bed. As I pulled the covers up to my chin I heard an audible voice say “Open your eyes!” I opened my eyes immediately because I was on my own and no one was supposed to be in my cell. I saw a hole appear in the air above my bedroom cabinet. It looked like electricity, bright and it shone brighter than diamonds. A rush of electricity came into my body through my feet and I was paralysed from head to toe. The only thing working in my body was what seemed to be a tiny area at the back of my skull, which only allowed me only to ‘think’ the name “Jesus” and even that was difficult.
I was unable to speak or call out and this sparkling hole started to get bigger and ended up about the size of about 1/2 meter wide. I could see through the hole into what looked like outer space and there were stars.
I was lifted off the bed in my body and moved into the centre of the cell. I knew that I was in my body because the bed was empty and I was suspended for a brief moment and then my body moved through the bars so that half of it was in the cell and the other half was outside and I was looking down my body into the hole. Then my whole body started to move towards the hole until it reached the opening.
I thought that I was going to go through the hole, which was still arcing with light; bright light and I then saw the form of a man with a beard arked in electricity moving through space. My body stopped moving forward and then moved back over my bed and it was then lowered. I didn’t wake up because I was already awake and when I tried to lift myself of the bed I was aware of a whirl of a holy presence around my pillow. This presence remained for what seemed like 5 minutes and then it gently subsided.
When I checked my watch it was 11.07pm.
In the morning I went with another inmate to the Chapel to run morning prayer, as the Chaplain was on sick leave and he had asked me to carry on with the prayers and the prison staff opened the doors for us. When I touched the light switch there was a loud bang and the switching unit caught fire with flames about 6″ to 7″ long covering my hand and all the lights tripped. The light switch was still smoking when the electricians arrived and they examined the whole system and were mystified as they were unable to explain the reason for such an occurrence. The system was protected from any power surge on the mains side and all that they could say was that some external power source seems to have entered the unit from the outside.
In my work at the Chapel I was exposed to all the western religions including the various mainstream Christian denominations and ministers, they came and went as the budget allowed and I served refreshments to them and the inmates after their services. I had to do that even for the Pagans who also used the Chapel for their meeting! Upon my request the Chaplain asked the Pagans to use the Multi Faith Room on the main wing as I didn’t feel that their presence was appropriate.
God used me and the men to make many spiritual things happen in the prison Chapel and on the wing. I have not written about these things before because God has already written about this through His Prophets and Scripture. Anyway, who would believe a wicked sinner like me, a convicted criminal, who only a few years ago would have been hung for the crimes for which he was convicted? Whilst in the prison and after coming out into the world I have been declared a fraud and the work that God did has been
dismissed by those who do not believe in my witness. The western Christianity refuses to believe that they have anything missing from their teaching, referring to Orthodoxy, even by some of the clergy, as Greek Mythology, Greek superstition, contrary to scripture, dogmatic and legalistic and hardly relevant for society today.
My mother died in Greece whilst I was ‘inside’ and I was told at 11.00pm by 2 prison officers who came into my cell. They confirmed my name and then said:
“Your mother’s dead!”
they turned on their heels and locked me away again, leaving me to cope with my grief on my own. I prayed all this up to God and he brought me a blessed peace, which allowed me to accept that she had fallen asleep. A year later my father died also. I was praying at the time he passed and I was aware of his passing. When the prison officer came to tell me the following morning, I said:”You have come to tell me that my father died last night, haven’t you?” He looked surprised and said “Who told you? I said “God.” I truly believe that they are both now with my son, Peter.
I asked all the ministers at the prison to explain what was happening to me in order to help me understand and not one of them had any idea of what I was talking about. A Catholic Bishop said: “I am Scientist and the brain generates electricity, so maybe that’s what happened?”
When my parole came up for review after 4 years I refused it, saying: “Parole is for rehabilitated offenders and I am innocent of the crimes that I was charged with. You may have my body but you don’t have my soul, so when you have finished playing silly games with my body just let me know”. I was consequently refused parole and sent for a Psychiatric and Spiritual Examination. When I met with the Psychiatrist she said “Are you homosexual?” I said “I have had lots of offers of homosexual relationships whilst I have been inside, but I have thanked them for the compliment and graciously declined as I have no doubt over my sexuality; I’m straight.” She looked surprised and said “Are you sure?” I said “Yes!” So she went on: “Well, you must be a woman then!” Stunned by her remarks I said “Are you serious?” and she replied: “You have the complete profile of a woman.” So I said: “Well, if I’m a woman you had better send me to Pucklechurch.” which is a prison for women.
Her austere response was:
“Don’t get smart with me!”
A member from the choir at Bath Orthodox Church came to see me after this as he had been asked to find out who I was and through him I was introduced to the Church in Bath and Father Yves came to visit me in Leyhill Prison and Father Luke from Wales also wrote to me. I asked Father Yves the same questions that I had asked the Bishop. He gave me a little book called ‘Orthodox Spirituality’ by Father Thomas Hopko, which I devoured.
It was to reveal to me the answers to so many of my questions that I so desperately wanted answer to and I went on to read other Orthodox books.
I spent over 5 years locked away from the world and during that time I missed the second stage of my sons’ lives. I met a lot of men who were struggling to find answers to the purpose of their lives and I felt compelled to help them. Men who did not know what it is like to have a father or how to be a father and are destined to continually drift in and out of the prison system. How we have failed them! I have lived with them, cried with them, listened to how they have been abused as children and loved them wherever they were spiritually and every night, in my dreams, I am reminded of them and I share their pain.
I have learned that if we commune with God, He uses us to plant and water the seed of His Holy Spirit in our brothers and sisters and it is God who makes that seed grow.
Since leaving prison in 1996 I have not always got things right, I know, but I have never lost my faith. My mother told me before she fell asleep: “If you lose your money you have lost nothing. If you lose your self respect you have lost something and if you lose your faith, you have lost everything!” I have struggled with illness and pain and still do today. I have made many mistakes and I am still a wretched sinner, but I have been blessed in so many different ways.
My gift from God has been my wife, Maria, who has since meeting me silently endured the persecutions of those that hate us.
We married in the Orthodox Church in Colchester in 2000 and through that blessing God has used Maria and the children to heal so many of the wounds that I received prior to and during my incarceration. I have been told to move on with my life, but after having known and felt some of the pain of the victims and prisoners, I am unable to stop myself revisiting them every night in
my dreams. I have tried to live my life in the world by being open and honest about my past. I have to declare my convictions to prospective employers for the rest of my life, so moving on has been made extremely difficult. God will show us as a family how we can do this in time. There are many people who are imprisoned in this world, who are confined by invisible bars in their lives and I pray for them also.
My many sins are always before me and through many tears I am assured that He has forgiven me them all and they have been forgotten, but many of those who live in the world seem unable to do the same.
So, how did I find Orthodoxy?
All I can say is that the seed of the Holy Spirit was sown in me when I was 5 years old, but, it has taken a lot of watering by many people to help me to finally commune with God. The brothers and sisters that helped me were not all Orthodox Christians, I hasten to add. God didn’t say in His ‘Great Commission’ that we should exclude any particular race or religion. Learning to live a non materialistic life has been one of my greatest blessings and learning the depth of prayer that can be achieved by moving beyond praying with the voice, mouth, lips and tongue and of course fasting, forgiveness of sins and love.
In order for me to move forward with God by living in the western world of Christianity, having an Anglican father and an Orthodox mother, was to find the root of our Christian faith and after tirelessly examining all the faiths, I came home and found true communion with God in Orthodoxy.
All glory to God!
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I Knew Right Then, In That Second…
by Trudy Ellmore, USA
My family of origin is Roman Catholic, the faith I practiced until I was 18. My love of God was deep and personal. There was never a time in my life when God was not present, even in my earliest memories. Yet, when someone witnessed to me and asked,
“Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? If you haven’t, you’re going to hell”
my reaction was one of panic. I turned away from my childhood church to a non-denominational fundamentalist church to allay my fear of damnation. There I met my first husband. After our marriage, we became involved in a Southern Baptist church where we both were baptized by immersion.
Following my husband’s death after 26 months of marriage, my infant son and I returned to my hometown. Thinking all Baptist churches were alike, I joined an American Baptist church, where I met my current husband, who was attending Seminary with the intention of pastoring in the Baptist denomination. We served the church for 5 years until he transitioned to higher education fundraising.
For the next 20 years, it was in the American Baptist denomination where my faith and love of God was nurtured and grew deeper and deeper, where I taught children and adult Sunday school classes, counseled children for baptism, served on Boards and committees, and volunteered for all sorts of ministries. It is also where I was challenged by a small-group Bible study leader to “be the church of the Book of Acts.”
That simple phrase started my quest to discover “where” that church was or if it “even was still around” and vibrant.
Simultaneously, I returned to college to finish my Bachelor’s degree. Majoring in history and taking every class possible that dealt with church history became the road which led me to the Orthodox Church. The reading list of one class included St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation. His thesis made Jesus Christ – the Man real to me.
In each class, I dug through the past. As each subsequent piece of history was uncovered, my soul hungered for more understanding. I also found myself a little angry and betrayed. Why hadn’t any of my former pastors shared the Early Church Fathers and that there were ancient texts translated into English available to read and learn how the Early Church worshipped? Hadn’t they learned this in Seminary? The history professor mentioned previously offered a new class: The History and Theology of Eastern Orthodoxy.
The first book I read was The Way of the Pilgrim. I had found my answer to what would lead me to a deeper prayer life!
Also during this time period, unbeknownst to all those closest to me, I was falling deeper into severe depression to the extent that every night I prayed,
“God, please do not let me awaken in the morning.”
He did not answer my prayers. Each morning I opened my eyes only to sink further down into sorrow. I held on to an emotionally frayed rope as I dangled over a cliff, all the while digging through history to find the Early Church.
The professor invited our class to Midnight Paschal Divine Liturgy at his parish. When I walked into the church, illuminated only by candles surrounding Christ’s tomb, I was shocked into silence. He really died! At midnight when the priest lifted the icon of Christ in the tomb aloft and carried it into the Sanctuary, my heart skipped – He had really risen from the dead! What I had always believed seem to become alive in front of my eyes.
I knew right then, in that second, that I needed to become a part of the Orthodox Church, that the Orthodox Church contained that which would heal and save me.
Fourteen months later, on the Feast Day of the Holy Cross – September 14, 2004, I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church, receiving St. Athanasius the Great, Patriarch of Alexandria as my patron saint.
As I look back over my entire life, I see God in the workings of my life. As I write this, five and a half years later, I remain deeply thankful to God, Who by the prayers of my Patron Saint, led me into the Holy Orthodox Church.
The Church has, in fact, saved my life.
FF
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Recovering the Ancient Paths
by Dennis L. Corrigan
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever”
The following is a revision of a letter (article) we wrote to the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel to explain our decision to withdraw from that organization in order to pursue our being catechized unto Chrismation into the Orthodox Church. We have revised it to make it more useful for a more general distribution by members of our congregation who may want to help in explaining our decision to families and friends.
The Carpenter’s Company is in the process of becoming a part of the Orthodox Church. This obviously means that we have had to withdraw from the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel which we did in early May, 1996. All this is actually the culmination of a journey which began for us in 1987 when the Holy Spirit commanded us to ask for the “ancient paths” (Jeremiah 6:16).
A Journey Begins
Our quest for the ancient paths did not actually get underway until June 17, 1989 when we began to meet every morning at six o’clock for prayer. We soon called it Vigil, the name given to the night office of prayer for over fifteen hundred years. We could not possibly have anticipated where this path would eventually lead us. Nor could we have foreseen that Vigil would last so long or become what it has.
When we began Vigil, the Lord’s Prayer was our prayer outline. About a month later, the Holy Spirit led us to begin to celebrate the Eucharist. Later worship was added. And as this process continued, now adding a certain element, now eliminating another, Vigil gradually became a different kind of meeting. Although its form was changing, one thing remained constant: the meeting began on its first day and has continued to the present with a strong, abiding, palpable sense of the Lord’s presence concerning which every visitor has remarked. However, the longer we maintained our daily Vigil, the further our path diverged from the path we had once traveled with Foursquare. Although we recognized we were becoming somewhat unique among Foursquare churches, we have always been confident that our conduct was well within the boundaries of Foursquare’s tolerance for diversity. More recently, however, especially since our encounter with Orthodoxy, we’ve become aware that we have been straining those boundaries.
A Spiritual Focus
By the time two years had passed, we had become a people with an intense spiritual focus. I suppose that is to be expected of a people who meet every day for prayer. We were beginning to give focused attention to issues to which we had only given lip service before.
We had all become faithful in maintaining a consistent, daily quiet time with the Lord. This was the first time that any of us had experienced consistent, long-term faithfulness in this regard.
We had become the kind of community we had only dreamed of before. We were learning what it really means to be “the family of God” as a matter of daily, practical reality.
Meeting daily as a prayer community meant that we could no longer tolerate in one another the “little” sins and acts of disobedience we’d learned to ignore when we used to meet weekly. Consequently we allowed the Holy Spirit to restore church discipline among us.
We became a people who gave themselves to the discipline of Scripture memorization. We have memorized I John, Romans, John and are now memorizing Galatians.
A Liturgical Direction
Meeting every day also made impossible the kind of innovative creativity a weekly schedule allows. Consequently, our daily worship became patterned. To our amazement, however, the more we repeated the prayers and songs we were using, the more meaningful they became to us. The result was predictable: our daily Vigil gradually became liturgical.
Enter, The Church Fathers
In 1992 on a personal retreat at St. Andrew’s Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery, I bought a copy of The Rule of St. Benedict (sixth century). Upon returning home, the leadership team began to read it together. What we discovered astonished us: The Rule dealt with situations we were facing fight then, but for which we had found little if any help from contemporary authors.
In the Introduction and footnotes were references to many others of the Church Fathers, most of whom we had never heard of before. Finding and reading these Church Fathers, particularly the Apostolic, Desert and Monastic Fathers, has perhaps been our most significant discovery. Their writings, though ancient, were more relevant and immediately applicable to our experience than anything we had ever heard or read. As a church which was becoming spiritual in focus, we had found an ocean of resource.
The Carpenter’s Company had become a church whose emphases had become prayer, strong and joyful worship and a commitment to learn obedience to God’s Word. Rather than “fulfillment” and “being affirmed” we put much more stress on “putting to death the deeds of the flesh and its passions and desires,” a consistent theme of the early Church Fathers.
A Growing Discomfort Results
When we began keeping Vigil, people who heard about it seemed to be impressed and were very complimentary. Without exception, they would say “If you keep this up for a year, you are going to have revival!”
However, as we did continue, they began to question why we were apparently neglecting the programs one might find in most churches. We assured these detractors that not having these programs didn’t mean we had neglected any of the areas of need these program customarily addressed. On the contrary, we had begun to discover that these things were more effectually dealt with by the things we were doing. Nevertheless, by stressing the things we did, we found ourselves more and more at variance with the prevailing Evangelical and Charismatic/Pentecostal culture.
While we’ve been walking on this increasingly spiritual pathway, we began to observe one thing after another in what was our own Foursquare denomination that caused us growing concern: Although we noticed these things with regard to the denomination with which we were then affiliated, they were and are nonetheless true of most Evangelical groups as well. Five examples follow:
1. The “Painless” Emphasis: About a year before the L.E.A.D. Seminars (a program promoted by Dr. John Holland, the President of the Denomination, for the “enrichment” of Foursquare ministers) began, the ICFG circulated a survey on “Fulfillment in Ministry” among all Foursquare ministers in the United States. I was alarmed at its focus on academic achievement and management style and its almost total neglect of more directly spiritual/devotional matters. I wrote a letter to this effect to Dr. John Holland. He didn’t like the letter. It was “disappointment” to him, and he asked that we get together for lunch. We did. During our conversation, Dr. Holland said, “Dennis, we don’t want to cause our people pain when they come to church. They have enough pain in the world.”
I was stunned. After pondering Dr. Holland’s response for quite a while, I could no longer avoid concluding that Foursquare had embraced and now espoused the “feel-good doctrine” of the 90’s. Is not pain the result of our sin? Although confronting sin causes pain, will not such confrontation, in the long run, lead to a more godly and joyful life? Therefore, aren’t ministers supposed to cause pain by confronting sin? Didn’t Christ our God cause pain in His spiritual directive to the rich young ruler? Did not Paul cause pain in his letters to the Corinthians and the Galatians?
2. Self-Esteem: Although not Foursquare himself, Dr. James Dobson has most certainly had as significant influence on the thinking of the contemporary Foursquare denomination as he has had on any other Evangelical group. Several years ago he wrote that virtually every human problem could be solved if we could build high self-esteem in both ourselves and others.
According to Romans 6-8, our problems emerge out of our sinful, flesh nature, not out of our lack of self-esteem. Dr. Dobson’s opinion contradicts this. Yet nowhere in the Foursquare movement or Evangelicalism at large, to my knowledge, was a significant voice raised to oppose Dr. Dobson’s variance. On the contrary, as far as our pastoral counseling practices are concerned, most Evangelicals have embraced and adopted this teaching.
3. The Addiction Doctrine: At the L.E.A.D. Seminar two years ago Dr. Ted Roberts taught about “sexual addiction.” We have but to assume that became of his role as a L.E.A.D. instructor Foursquare thoroughly endorsed what he taught. According to the implications of what Dr. Roberts was teaching, sexual misconduct is to be considered a kind of disease to be dealt with therapeutically by some twelve-step type program.
Have we not missed Paul’s clear message in Romans 6:16 – “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?” What Ted Roberts and others call addiction, Paul calls slavery to s/n. Those who give themselves to sexual sin, become slaves of sexual sin. Freedom isn’t restored through therapy, but through confession and repentance. That is clearly not what Ted Roberts was teaching.
Compounding his error, Dr. Roberts said that King David was a “classic sexual addict.” Though challenged from the floor, he defended and maintained his position. His statement was blasphemous. David did sin sexually, once, with Bathsheba, but ultimately repented (Psalm 51 – the Psalm most often quoted in the New Testament). He has always been known as “a man after God’s own heart,” a type of Jesus’ Kingly Ministry and Jesus Himself was called “Son of David.” Calling David a “sexual addict” (pervert) reflects blasphemously on the Father who endorsed him and the Son who came in fulfillment of his type, and on David who turned from his sin.
4. Majoring on Theological Minors: At one of the panel discussions at last year’s Southwest District Pastors’ Conference, a recently appointed pastor asked whether children should be allowed to take Communion if they haven’t yet been baptized. I was aghast at our District Supervisor, John Watson’s answer. “It’s not an issue? he said, “If you make it an issue, you’ll end up pastoring a church of twenty people. Making those things an issue will narrow your base and we are about broadening our base.” John’s meaning was clear: such secondary, non-essential issues must not get in the way of making our churches as big as we can.
Since when is either Water-Baptism or Communion, a secondary, non-essential issue? Has not, rather, church size always been considered of secondary importance, at best, until the very recent Church Growth movement?
5. Capitulation to Feminism: The more recent turn taken by Foursquare Women International away from being an auxiliary missionary service organization to being focused on the “affirmation” of women in a role of leadership and ministry, we believe is a clear capitulation to the subtleties of the spirit of feminism which is abroad in our land, a surrender to the spirit of this present age. Certainly Foursquare is not alone in this drift. Other Evangelical and Charismatic groups are years ahead. Although the languages used are the various dialects of “Evangelese,” the elements of the Feminist Agenda are clearly in place. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. historian to recognize that in this regard Evangelicalism as a whole is embracing a not too latent or embryonic feminism today just as mainline Protestantism did just twenty years ago.
A Turning Point
It has been a source of no little concern for us that although we have remained deeply confident that what we have been doing has been right and pleasing to the Lord; nevertheless, the more we pursued our course, the more estranged we became from Foursquare in particular and from Evangelicalism in general.
Recently, two things brought all of this to a head: Last year, we sent Robin and one of the wives of our Church Council to the Foursquare Women International Conference in Dallas. They returned with a video. I was stunned at the wholesale endorsement that Foursquare leadership at that conference gave to the ‘Toronto Blessing,” a movement so spurious that even John Wimber has disclaimed and dissociated himself from it. Is our anxiety for renewal so undiscerning that while we strain the gnats or by-law infractions, we are willing to swallow a camel of such an obvious spiritual deception as the “Toronto Blessing?”
The second thing happened about the same time. One of our members picked up a copy of The Spiritual Life and How to Be Attuned to It1 by someone called Theophan the Recluse. He wrote exactly the same thing as the Church Fathers. So we were very surprised to learn that this man had lived in nineteenth century Russia.
We sent to the publisher and received a catalogue of many more writers from this tradition, all of whom wrote and taught like the Church Fathers. They were not only Russians, but Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Arabs and Egyptians as well. Unbeknownst to us, we had discovered the spiritual writers of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Orthodoxy?
After spending several months reading these writers we came across The Orthodox Study Bible published in 1995 by Thomas Nelson. It’s not unusual to find an obscure press publishing works like these. But a major publisher like Thomas Nelson publishing a special Bible for the Orthodox is something else. Who are, these Orthodox, anyway? Having this and several other questions, we wrote to Conciliar Press2, the people behind its publication, for answers and to open dialogue.
Five days later I received a call from Father Peter Gillquist. I knew Peter Gillquist as one of the regional directors of Campus Crusade for Christ who surrounded Bill Bright when I was on part-time staff in 1963. Now he is an Orthodox priest. Father Peter sent me a copy of his book Becoming Orthodox which tells the story about how he (and other regional directors of Campus Crusade I had known) discovered Orthodoxy and recounts their journey which resulted in their conversion to the Orthodox Church.
Although different in several of the particulars, our journeys were parallel. As we spoke further with Father Peter and read his and Jon Braun’s book, Divine Energy, we discovered that, although substantially different in liturgical form, the spirit and faith and doctrine that had developed among the Carpenter’s Company was in fact, Orthodox. As diverse from Foursquare as we had become, we had become like the Orthodox.
Our unanimous decision to become an Orthodox Church, therefore, is simply the logical conclusion of the decision we made in June, 1989. Although our pursuit of Orthodoxy is only less than five months old, we have been “becoming Orthodox” for the past seven years. We just didn’t know it until now. In finding Orthodoxy, we have found “the ancient path, where the good way is” (Jeremiah 6:16). Metropolitan Philip, a hierarch of the Orthodox Church has said that the Orthodox Church is the best kept secret in America. Our conviction is that we haven’t found just another church, we’ve found the Church, the one true Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of history. In the words of a young man who recently found salvation through Orthodoxy:
… at last, I finally began to see how everything did fit together, how Truth was not “scattered in a thousand pieces,” but was preserved, intact and unchanging, in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church … I had finally, through all my searching, found the key, the ultimate source of Revealed Truth in pure, undistorted form. Something had always kept me looking for the “hardcore,” no-compromising Christianity, because I knew down inside that, if Jesus Christ is God, then Christianity had to be the most radical belief in the world. And it’s not surprising that the most hardcore, radical, all-or-nothing message I’ve ever heard comes not from anything “modern, new and revolutionary,” but from the “original thing” – the One Church, the only Church, the true Church the Orthodox Christian Church, the mystical Body of Christ.
Indeed, Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever!
ENDNOTES
1. Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, P.O. Box 70, Platina, CA 96976
2. Conciliar Press, P.O. Box 76, Ben Lomond, CA 95005-0076
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JANUARY 2025: MASS BAPTISMS AROUND THE WORLD FOR THE FEAST OF THEOPHANY
Orthodox churches across the world welcomed new members this past weekend as mass Baptisms were held, timed to the feast of Theophany, commemorating Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan River.
The newly illumined include children and adults.
United States
On Saturday, January 18, the eve of the feast of the Theophany, nine people were baptized at the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia’s Monastery of the Glorious Ascension in Resaca, Georgia. They communed of the Holy Mysteries of Christ for the first time on the feast itself.
Their names are: John, Marina, Olga, Longinus, Nicholas, Constantine, Gabriel, Marcus, and Luke.
England
On the same day, six adults received Holy Illumination during a Baptismal Liturgy at the Church of the Grand Duchess St. Elizabeth in Wallasey in northern England.
The group included three from the St. Elizabeth Church and three who traveled from the London Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Royal Martyrs. The Sacrament was celebrated by Archpriest Paul Elliot and Fr. Justin Venn, who were able to make use of the parish’s newly constructed adult baptismal font.
Following the festal Liturgy the next day, the waters of the Mersey Estuary were blessed.
Philippines
Four catechumens from the Church of Blessed Matrona of Moscow in Davao, Philippines, were also baptized on the feast of Theophany itself.
Following the feast-day Liturgy, Hieromonk Kornily (Molev) and the parishioners went to the coast to bless the waters of the Pacific Ocean. There, the rector celebrated the Sacrament of Baptism for four locals.
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OrthoChristian.com previously reported on several mass Baptisms taking place throughout the Nativity and Theophany season, including in Uganda, Australia, Bangkok, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Alaska.
INSTA
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A Catechumen's Journey from Hinduism
This is a very long read but well worth your time. Anjali is our newly illumined catechumen whose baptism video I posted earlier. What has always fascinated me about her is that she grew up as a Hindu and so her journey into Eastern Orthodoxy was quite different from those of us who came to it through the many Western Protestant and Catholic paths. I was surprised to learn as I read this that she had also journeyed through the Baha'i faith. Her insights gained from that experience remind me a lot of how Mormons seem to see themselves as well. I love to be in bible study with Anjali because I find her insights so valuable. Here she has offered this beautiful testimony of how she arrived at Eastern Orthodoxy and allowed me to publish it so all of you can read it too. I hope you find it as fascinating and wonderful as I have! It was originally composed, I think, as a post to an Orthodox forum to which she belongs.
In a nutshell: I was born and raised Hindu, then was Baha’i for 5 years (2002-2007) before becoming Christian and finding the Orthodox church.
How exactly did this happen? Well, as a Hindu, what I learned about other religions were that there are many paths up the same spiritual mountain to reach God. Maybe even the belief that the differences argued about between different religions are like the blind men in a room with an elephant, each feeling a different part and jumping to a different conclusion about what it is - each accurately describing in his own way what one aspect of the elephant was like, but unable to see the whole, and so thinking the others were wrong. So I didn't really care that other religions said different things on certain subjects, I just followed "my" way that I inherited from my family and culture. I believed there was great wisdom in it, and assumed that other religions probably also had great wisdom in them. I became interested in reading about other religions as a hobby - and loved seeing that the core spiritual teachings/messages seemed similar - about love, prayer, detachment, and renunciation of self. It should be noted I wasn't reading about hardcore theology of various religions - I was reading the writings of various spiritual masters, mystical works, mythology, stuff like that. I had no urge to look deeper into this mystery of how there were all these different religions, or of looking more closely at the differences; I thought it was a waste of time, foolish. One thing I didn't realize though, was that that whole blind men and elephant analogy? It assumes that no particular religion truly has an understanding of God - well, I understood that, but it didn't really bother me. It never occurred to me that possibly one of the religions actually sees the whole elephant, rather than only seeing a part. The idea was that it didn't matter - you didn't need to understand the elephant as an elephant to get to God, in fact maybe it was humanly impossible anyway, for people to conceive of these things. It never occurred to me that God might have ever approached us with a very particular way that He wanted us to approach Him, rather my focus was on our imperfect selves trying to reach towards God.
Then I came across the Baha'i Faith - it claimed to reveal the elephant itself, saying that in the past, people were only ready to be exposed to whatever particular part God saw was fit at the time. So all the previous religions were chapters in one book, leading up to this chapter called the Baha'i Faith that reveals the unity of all religions. But not in a mysterious way - it sought to provide distinct proofs for this. This is what finally made me start looking analytically and critically at all the world religions, including the Baha'i Faith, to see how God's web of different religions were really and truly connected. This was key - until I started being more demanding, I was undiscerning in my happiness to just accept all religions as they were, like different flavors of ice cream. I enjoyed what flowed; I ignored what clashed, figuring it was just to be expected, realistically. Different people will see through different lenses. But as a Baha'i, I was told that if I looked really hard, I would see that all the different religions really were one, and furthermore that all of them awaited a Messianic figure whom Baha'is believed to have come in the person of Baha'u'llah in the 19th century, founder of the Baha'i Faith. This fascinated me - and both to better educate myself and also to be able to teach members of other religions about the Baha'i Faith, I started studying.
Now rather than leaving it all up to mystery, I said the Baha'i faith had specific explanations as to how all the religions are different paths to one God, right? This was critical - in the Hindu mindset, I would never had tools/measuring sticks that I expected to actually work in this undertaking, so I would never seriously have undertaken it, or would not have had a way of disproving/testing/evaluating any of these beliefs about religions being essentially equal. At best, I would have prayed like Sri Ramakrishna, who claims that Jesus, Mohammed, and other figures came to him when he prayed, and so he believed whomever you prayed to, God would come to you in that form - he experienced that, so he believed that, never thinking maybe it was a delusion. As Orthodox monks say, you can have delusions, or you can even have demons that approach you as angels of light! Anyway, back to the story. The Baha'i Faith stated that all the different religions have the same, unchanging, essential, ethical and spiritual teachings about God and soul and our purpose, but have different social teachings about externals, or even about things like marriage - these changing teachings are meant to suit the particular people/culture/time to whom the religion is brought by a Prophet/Manifestation. However, sometimes even the unchanging spiritual teachings are lost or corrupted over time, and that also explains for some of the differences. We could only tell what was right by measuring it against Baha'u'llah's explanation of all that was true and false, for he had come to restore truth. This starts a nice and neat process of circular thinking for determining what was true and what was false in all the various world religions, to make them all match the Baha'i Faith. It can be used to explain away anything, to make night appear to be day - in fact, Baha'u'llah even says that you mustn't question the Prophet/Manifestation, that you should even accept that day is night if he tells you that. Then he also says we must be independent investigators of truth, listening to no one - all these contradictions, but everyone denies they are contradictory, believing all these paradoxes are true in some mysterious spiritually wise way.
Well. So there I was, studying along, when I hit on just one event that could not be explained away by Baha'i cleverness. The Resurrection. Here at last, was the only and most effective measuring stick of truth, to sort through the claims of religions unity. The Baha'i Faith, Islam, and Christianity clearly taught different things about who Jesus was. Well, the Baha'i Faith claimed to be able to reconcile these differences, but it was too contrary to all evidence. Christians claimed that Jesus was God, was the Son of God, and all this stuff about a trinity, which really I had no idea what they were talking about. They claimed this resurrection, which made no sense to me - not that I didn't believe Jesus couldn't rise from the dead if he were God, but I had no idea what possible relevance that could have, since I didn't know/understand about the Fall, sin, the Final Resurrection - I assumed these were all myths, with no more relevant deep meaning than a fairy tale, except maybe metaphorical spiritual meanings. I wasn't even interested, because I never understood what importance that event should have to me. No Christian had ever explained that to me - they'd just say crazy stuff like, "I've been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and now I'm saved! Jesus died for your sins! Don't you want to be saved?" then they'd paint portraits of Hell - it all made zero sense to me, just as though someone said, "My red balloon popped and then candy canes fell out of the sky, your rabbit is winking at me, doesn't all this make you want to buy a new Nissan??" I am not exaggerating - this nutshell "Gospel message" makes absolutely no sense to a non-Christian, no real meaningful sense, anyway. You just have no idea what they are so excited about - so Jesus rose from the dead, big whoop, so what? Good for him, but....so what? He healed people...he was loving, kind, innocent, born of a virgin, sinless.... so what? I didn't even grow up with same concept of sin as Christians do, so "sinless" vs. "sinner" didn't mean the same things to me as to a Christian anyway. In other words, we lacked the same language/doctrine/context, so the whole message was being lost in translation. The same things happen when Americans decide they are interested in Hindu things - I am always suspicious when I hear people throwing around words like karma and dharma, etc. Do they really understand what they are talking about? It also makes me suspicious that I here more Americans talking about tantric sex and other exotic things, whereas the Indian Hindus I knew were just taught to be devoted to God and pray and go to the temple. Sex was a taboo topic, maybe too taboo. Anyway, the point of this tangent is, I always felt very misunderstood by Christians who had these wild orgy type images of what it must be like for my family to be Hindu, and I felt almost equally misunderstood by Westerners who rejected their Christian upbringing to come to Hinduism thinking along similar lines.
Getting back to the story: Since I didn't have a firm grasp on what Christians were saying, it was easy to let other religions explain it to me. Hindus told me that Christ was an avatar just like any other Hindu avatar, or that Christ was actually a great yogi who had achieved self-realization. Indeed, when I read the Gospels as Hindu, that’s exactly how it came across when I was left to interpret things myself (so much for sola scriptura). The Baha'i Faith stated that Jesus was a Prophet/Manifestation, just like Mohammed and Baha'u'llah, Moses, Abraham, Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Adam (I knew nothing about the Old Testament, so I had no idea that the specific way in which these figures were being likened to each other was highly dubious). He was born of a virgin, he was killed by crucifixion, but he was not physically resurrected. Some Baha'is are shocked to learn that it is in Baha'i scripture that there was NO physical resurrection or appearance to the disciples at all - most Baha'is think nothing is said about this subject other than if it happened, it wasn't significant anyway, what mattered was a "spiritual" resurrection of the dejected disciples, who after 3 days regained their faith and bravery and went out to teach the Gospel. I found it in scripture - NO physical resurrection. Mohammed taught that Jesus was not even crucified - how could a prophet of God be given a shameful death? No, he wasn't crucified at all, God took him up to heaven instead, and someone else was crucified in his place and made to appear to be him, tricking all who viewed it. And yet, if they were tricked to think it was Jesus, why are they being chastised by God for believing it was Jesus? That question is not answered, and yet this frightening Jesus is waiting till the end times to return and break all the crosses, judge all the Christians for believing in it, and to proclaim Islam as the true religion after all. In fact, Mohammed teaches that Jesus was a Muslim. Okay, this was getting too bizarre even for me, with my ability to rationalize any contradiction thanks to Baha’i mental gymnastics skills. Baha'u'llah said that Mohammed meant that Jesus' spirit could never be crucified, only his body - but I really felt that Mohammed meant exactly what he adamantly said.... so that made the first crack in my faith in Baha'u'llah's teachings. Also, the Baha'i Faith sought to explain the true meaning of the trinity, whereas Mohammed ranted about the trinity concept being a huge mistake - and described a false understanding of it to boot. So this stuff wasn't adding up.
To make it even more shocking, I started reading about evidence for Christ's resurrection - not only did I feel there was more evidence supporting this event than we have for other events which we take for granted as being historically true, from reading the Gospels and knowing the horrible deaths these apostles underwent, it became very clear to me that they really believed in a physical resurrection, and they were dying for something more than this “be nice to each other” message. The Baha'i explanation was that superstitions arose about the nature of Christ and his resurrection, whether it was shortly after Christ's death or as later belief, which caused people to re-interpret these historical happenings, to give a false interpretation of the Bible. Paul himself is quoted by Baha'is as evidence against the physical resurrection of Jesus or anybody else for that matter. I've even heard a Baha'i quote the story about doubting Thomas as evidence against the resurrection - pointing out that though Thomas asked to place his fingers into he wounds, when Christ appeared and offered, it doesn't state that Thomas actually DID.... the implication being that Jesus was not truly physically present and that had Thomas tried, he wouldn’t have managed to touch the wounds - guess Jesus just outsmarted him! Probably the only reason he “tricked” him was because (as with the rest of Christ's ministry, as described by the Baha'i faith) miracles were necessary for these backwards people. But later prophets, like Mohammed and Baha'u'llah, didn't give miracles, not because they didn't have power, but because people were supposed to be more mature than that. :-P
Anyway, the trouble is, as some Baha'is were forgetting, according to Baha'i scripture, there was no physical resurrection or reappearance of the material form of Jesus at all whatsoever. So the real, official Baha’I explanation is simply that the resurrection only means that the disciples regained their faith and courage after 3 days to go out and proclaim the Gospel. It was thus a “spiritual resurrection”. The Gospel (according to Baha'is) was simply Christ's spiritual teachings of how to lead a good life and to love God, and that he himself was a Prophet/Manifestation, so better listen up. And any tales of any other type of resurrection or Gospel were the result of later misinterpretations. However, Baha'u'llah states that the Bible is not corrupted; rather it is wrongly interpreted (unlike Muslims, who believe the Bible text has been corrupted itself - another difference between Baha'is and Muslims, despite Baha’i claims that both religions are one). So basically, the Gospels are supposed to be full of allegory, including the story of the resurrection. Here's the thing though, there are glitches. For example, Baha’is believe the virgin birth actually happened (Muslims believe this too). The healing/feeding miracles – Baha’is say some happened, but they should always be understood in a spiritual sense, since that is what is important, not these material things, of course! (Muslims just believe Jesus was granted the ability of miracles by God). The resurrection of Christ though – this miracle is flat out denied. Why is this the only miracle that is taboo to both Muslims and Baha'is? I wanted to know - why would all the other miracles be okay to believe, but not the resurrection? Also, if the Baha'i teaching that the New Testament is mainly allegory and spiritual teachings, not literal at all.... well, why did it read so matter-of-factly? It doesn't read like a mystical, symbolic work at all - it is very direct, simple, and to the point. I simply couldn’t believe that it was not intended to mean exactly what it said - and that the earliest martyrs did not believe in this resurrection - in fact, based on my research, the resurrection seemed to have been the most important part of the story, not relegated to the back-burner behind Christ's spiritual teachings, the way Baha'is would have it. If it were a false belief, what kind of God would corrupt the teachings so quickly? What would be the point? And back again to the question - what is the big deal about this resurrection? Why is everyone seeming fixated on this one crucial point that can't be agreed on, that simply must be denied by both Muslim and Baha'i scripture? I mean, he's already being born from a virgin, so what if he also rose from the dead?
This is what really made me start to feel suspicious that maybe the Gospel was more than the good news that this great Prophet named Jesus had come along to tell everyone to love each other and to love God. Not to belittle that message, but there was more to the story. I didn't know what that whole message was, but I decided I ought to find out what all this ranting and raving about the resurrection was all about and why I should care.
By this point I had already seen all the holes poked into the Baha'i Faith, so I officially resigned from the Baha'i Faith on July 7, 2007, and became a "Christian" by default. I know that is really weird, but that's exactly how it happened! I guess I labeled myself Christian, but I didn't know really what the Gospel was about - just that there was this guy Jesus who seemed to have been born of a virgin and died and then lived, and everyone was excited about it. It wasn't a religious experience or even a true understanding, so I don't know if I was really a Christian. I do know that I don't think any of this would have happened if a Christian friend of mine hadn't prayed for me at that time - seemed like I was lost in my happy web of delusion until after he prayed for me and it all came crashing down. So that gave me faith in this religion too. Basically, for the past year since resigning from the Baha’i Faith, I've just been studying. I wanted to find out what the original teachings of the apostles were, and what Jesus really meant to say to us, since this entire journey had made me keenly aware of the issue of corrupted teachings versus true teachings. And lo and behold, it turns out there were tons of books written by scholars ever since that event happened, trying to sort all of this out. I was glad the books were there, but I was even more confused – if this Resurrection was supposed to be so important, how could people have lost the original message of what it meant and what Jesus really wanted us to believe, what the apostles really taught? Why were people today still looking to uncover the original church of Biblical times (“based on the latest research!”) – I mean, how in the heck could they have lost that information if it was so important? How could they go around getting everyone (myself included) all riled up about worried about this, and then not be able to tell us what we needed to know about it?
At the time, I only had access to Protestant books, and they certainly helped some, but they still left me feeling that a lot was unexplained or random or didn't make sense. I didn't really start to understand the "Good News" until I was led to the Orthodox Church just this past April, on Good Friday. I was loaned the book "The Orthodox Church", and the rest was pretty much history - it convinced me that not only was the original faith of the apostles uncorrupted, that in that same line of reasoning/faith, the ancient church was still alive - and almost as proof, that book finally made the Gospel start to make sense to me! I definitely believed in the importance of the Holy Tradition - I never understood the sola scriptura thing I was reading in the Protestant Books - they didn't seem to realize there were large gaps in what they considered to be simple teachings/knowledge, because they were all interpreting according to some mysterious code that I hadn't been exposed to, but claiming it was just all "written in the Bible". Having read the New Testament first as a Hindu and then as a Baha'i, I knew firsthand that there are all kinds of different ways to sincerely misinterpret scripture. So I was grateful to finally come to a church that had the holy tradition guided by the Holy Spirit to explain things. Also, to know what we don't know too. My experience with the Baha'i faith and investigation into corruptions, etc., had built up my faith in what these earliest Christian people taught.... and I didn't understand why Protestants couldn't have this same faith? They lacked faith, and called it true faith. I didn't believe their idea that the church was corrupted until the first Protestants showed up.... it reminded me of the Baha'i way of thinking, a lack of faith, a hole which is later stopped up with creations/hopes/interpretations of one's own, all under the false pretense of "true knowledge" and "faith", when really they seem to be weaving a web of their own liking, without even realizing it. An unconscious denial of the power of the Holy Spirit, to either think the Holy Spirit has checked out, is too mysterious to know His workings, or to reduce His workings to only babbling, despite Jesus' promise to send the Holy Spirit who would lead to all truth, these seem like strange beliefs for people who really have faith in Christ and the Bible to believe.
Another thing I noticed that the few times I went to a Protestant non-denominational church prior to finding the Orthodox church, while I liked the sermons and I learned to like some of the songs, it distinctly felt like a memorial service for Christ. Well, he did say, "do this in remembrance of me", so that's exactly what it felt like...and the communion seemed really random. Like, well, this was the eccentric thing that Christ wanted us to do, so let's do it! I don't think the members of the church thought it was eccentric, but really - with no other meaning than the symbolic one, it just all seemed kind or strange to me - like some antiquated practice that withstood the test of time, the bread and wine eventually transformed to a cracker the size of a cheezit and a shot of grape juice, the same way the gladiatorial displays in the Roman coliseum have maybe been transformed into modern day football games in stadiums. I am not saying this at all to laugh about it or to make fun - I wasn't amused, I was just mystified, but willing to go along with it and figuring this was just the way it was. At the Orthodox church, it wasn't like a memorial service for someone who had passed on to the next world, it was worship - worship the way Hindus worship, truly believing that God was present, singing to God, not about him, not singing to ourselves, not singing for fellowship, not worshiping his idea, but actually presenting worship as a sacrifice within the presence of God. - and not being casual in his presence, but having a sense of holiness and respect - not because people wanted to be goody-two-shoes, but because if you actually believe that God is present, you'll be alert, rather than coming up with excuses about how God shouldn't care about this or that or the other, but naturally wanting to do your best in the presence of God out of love and respect and acknowledgment of his holiness. I don't know...I guess I felt like, as much as I liked the Protestant church (the minister was great!), I felt they were talking about something, about learning about something, whereas at the Orthodox Church actually had it present. I also instinctively felt that the Orthodox Church housed the wisdom of elders, whereas the Protestant church housed the rebellious self-confidence of a teenager. Also, whereas when I was growing up, I felt that Western Christians just looked down on Hindus as being completely wrong and ignorant, I felt the Orthodox church revealed the true way of worship, the true reaching out to God, that Hindus had been trying to do. It makes me think of what Paul said when he was in...Athens? That there was this idol of the unknown God, that they Greeks already tried to worship, well Paul was here to finally teach them who this God was, in the same way I feel that Christianity has brought to light what Hindus have tried to do from times before the Christ the Light came to earth, if that makes much sense? So maybe Hindus do in the dark what Christians do in the light? While fumbling and some wrong perceptions can be experienced, learned, and propagate even more of such wrong teachings in the dark, once you turn the light on, you realize - wait a minute! I thought I knew how this whole room was set up and how everything worked, but in reality, now I see it is different! Some is the same, but now I can go about things the way they were intended. Now, I no longer hold an elephant's trunk thinking it's a snake and once in a while wondering what else there is to it - now the lights are on, and I can see that wow! There is an elephant in the room! Such is the differing result of humans striving for truth in our spiritual darkness, vs. what happens when God himself bringing us the truth with his light.
While I think the stereotypical attitude of some Christians about Hinduism being totally corrupt and demonic and awful is unrealistic, I have, now that I am beginning to finally understand some of Christianity (thanks again, to the Orthodox church), I am starting to see troubling things that I had been blind to before. I came across a series of articles, which point out some fundamental differences which may have seemed irrelevant to me before becoming Christian, harmless when I first became Christian by default, and now are starting to seem troubling in a very real way. I don't know if I agree 100% with the articles, but they bring up some good points.
Right now, I am still overwhelmed by trying to learn and participate as much as I can as a catechumen - it's all very recent, after I attended the EO church for the first time on Good Friday, I became a catechumen on Pentecost - so it's all happening very fast. But eventually, I would like to write about Hinduism and the Baha'i Faith from an Orthodox perspective. Particularly the Baha'i Faith - I have even kept the core books of the Baha'i faith, some which are hard to come by actually, so that in the future I'll have them as reference. If you're at all interested in discussing more about this, the youngest of the world's religions, a messianic one where the founder claims to be the Return of Christ, I'm planning on adding a thread about it in the OC group "Battling Christian cults".
I feel very lucky to have been brought to the Orthodox Church. I feel lucky that it all happened so quickly once I became Christian, involving little effort on my own part, whereas others have searched many years as Christians before finding it. I feel convinced that it was definitely beyond my doing - I'm still amazed by it all. It has really made me believe in the power of sincere prayer in bringing others to Christ. Though I don’t feel ready to adequately bring anyone else to Christ right now, I firmly believe in praying for that to happen, praying really does have an effect that no amount of talking/reasoning can do. I would never have come on my own I think, despite all the arguments I encountered - I really believe it was because my friend prayed for me, and God brought it about. Until then, I was very happily lost in illusions with a nimble way to deflect anything a Christian might have said to me, to stay steeped in my beautiful cocoon, and a very hip one, at that - one that seemed very attractive on many sides. God had to wake me up to make me realize that beauty and wishful thinking are not the same as truth, which is even more beautiful (and terrible!) than someone lost in his or her illusions can even begin to imagine. There is so much wrapped up inside of Christianity that you really don't suspect from the little flyers people hand out on street corners:-) At least that's how it seems now that I feel I am being guided in the Orthodox way.
I know this was a really long-winded and winding story, but I hope that reading it will remind you again to pray for others to come to Christ, pray that God will lift them above the many, many layers of illusion and denial that keep them from Him, even those who might sincerely think that they do believe in Him when they really don’t. That’s the state that I was in when I was Hindu and Baha’i. I was more interested in my concepts of Him than in what He wanted me to believe. Also I hope that this account may have brought some points to mind that will help you become an even better teacher of the Gospel when you are approaching someone who comes from a completely non-Christian background. To not only bring them to Christ in a meaningful way, but to also bring them to the Orthodox church, because I truly believe that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is so incredible and can have a much stronger impact on a person (particularly of Eastern background perhaps?), whereas the Western approach to Christianity may just leave them wanting and wondering and thirsting still. This is a big generalization, but I worry that the Protestant or Catholic way of spreading the Gospel can do more harm than good, driving people away from Christ, whereas the Orthodox can bring healing and joy and understanding, drawing people towards Christ. Of course what do I know, I may be totally (or at least partially) wrong about this, but it’s a thought worth considering.
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THE LONG JOURNEY TO ORTHODOXY OF JOHANNA MCBRIDE FROM BELFAST, IRELAND
Sergei Mudrov
The McBride family lives on Ashfield Street in a typical neighborhood of two-storied houses in north Belfast. Everything here is familiar to those who know British and Irish cities and their residential areas, the only difference being a birch tree planted many years ago that grows near the McBrides’ house. True, the capital of Northern Ireland is a specific city: it has seen a division between Catholics and Protestants (the Republicans and the Loyalists). At one time, the political and religious confrontation in Ulster brought all the horrors of hatred and curses, terrorist attacks and armed clashes that took the lives of over 3000 people.
From local residents’ point of view, the McBride family are Catholics, since the head of the family, Pat (Patrick), and his three sons belong to the Roman Catholic Church. However, the McBrides are not entirely part of the Belfast Catholic community, since Pat's wife, Johanna (Astrid), as well as their daughter Lucy, are Orthodox Christians.
Perhaps there is no single beaten path for those who were born outside the Orthodox Church and have found their way to the faith that gave the world St. Seraphim of Sarov, Holy Hierarch John of Shanghai, Sts. Job and Amphilochius of Pochaev and many other wondrous saints. Some people, after learning about Orthodoxy, convert to the true faith very quickly; sometimes after several months. But for others this journey takes many years, accompanied by painful reflections, sometimes sorrow and long, heartfelt prayer. Motivations can vary—from disappointments and intellectual searchings to marriage with an Orthodox Christian.
Astrid Keil (her surname before marriage), who now lives in the north of Belfast, wasn’t born on Irish soil, but in Germany, to a Protestant family. From childhood she was raised in Lutheranism, in which there is no veneration of the Theotokos and the saints. Paradoxically, Astrid’s first encounter with Orthodoxy was in her own Lutheran family. Her father, a professor of Slavonic studies, enjoyed listening to Orthodox hymns when he wanted to rest mentally and spiritually. The little girl really liked Orthodox hymns—sometimes she listened to them without her father’s knowledge, entering his room unnoticed. These touching and pleasant childhood memories remained in her heart forever.
Astrid's childhood with its joyful “musical” encounter with Orthodoxy gave way to youth, and at the age of fifteen she encountered Orthodoxy again—now at a religious and liturgical level. A Greek Orthodox church was built in the area of Bonn where the Keils lived. The Greeks invited local Catholics and Protestants to the Paschal night service. Rolf-Dietrich decided to go to the festive service with his daughter.
“For me these were unusual, incomparable impressions,” Johanna relates. “I felt elation and joy. Everyone in the church spoke Greek. I didn’t understand them, but I saw joyful faces and positive emotions. One woman even hugged me—she was so happy on the feast of the Resurrection of Christ, and she wanted to share her happiness and joy with me.”
The joy of the encounter, the feeling of Christ's presence, kind emotions, the benevolence of unknown parishioners... It seemed that all conditions were interwoven for the young Lutheran woman to set foot on the path to Orthodoxy. But that didn’t happen. The Paschal service and emotions became a thing of the past. Astrid no longer went to services at the Greek church. It was necessary to wait for something else; apparently as a Protestant she needed to go through a special acceptance of the image reflecting the prototype—the Orthodox icon—in her religious search. For many Protestants, the veneration of icons was and still remains one of the stumbling blocks, which, alas, prevents them from coming closer to Orthodoxy. Even with sympathy for the deep theological sophistication and moral teachings of the Orthodox Church Fathers, Protestants sigh with doubt when they see burning candles in front of icons of the Most Holy Theotokos or St. Sergius of Radonezh. It is very difficult to overcome this stereotype of Protestant consciousness, especially when many generations have absorbed Protestant logic and dogmatics from childhood.
And again a miraculous encounter came through her family: Rolf-Dietrich brought two large posters about an icon exhibition from Moscow. On one of them there was an image of an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, and on the other one, of St. John the Baptist. Surprisingly, these images, printed on paper, somehow resonated in the heart of the young Lutheran woman: She began to pray secretly in front of them.
“You see, I didn't know anything about holy icons,” Johanna continues. “I saw that one icon depicted the Virgin Mary, but as for the second one, at first I wasn’t even sure whether it was Christ or St. John the Baptist. Nevertheless, I began to pray in front of these icons. I had the feeling that St. John the Baptist was holding out his hands as if he wanted to receive thoughts and words addressed to him. I felt that I could share my desires, feelings and thoughts with him. Moreover, when I looked into his eyes, I felt how they was leading me to prayer.”
From that moment on, Astrid could no longer imagine her life without Orthodox icons. Another miracle followed in due course: through the icon of St. John the Baptist she received a revelation about her future daughter! According to Johanna, in 1996, when they were already raising three children, she caught herself thinking that God wanted to send them another child. During prayer Astrid saw a small image of a praying girl appear on St. John the Baptist’s icon. To dispel her doubts she called her husband. But Pat saw the same thing!
Nine months later, another Christian soul came to our world... A whole book (in English) is devoted to this story: Anne-Marie... a Child of God, in which there is an account of this miracle, and of the ordeals endured by the little girl during her short life (Anne-Marie didn’t live more than three years; she died during a second heart operation).
Since the news of her daughter’s birth came through an icon that had arrived from Russia, Astrid decided to find a Russian church and talk to the priest there.
“I didn't want to go to a Romanian or Greek church because the icon was Russian,” Johanna recounts. “The nearest Russian parish was at Stradbally (a town in county Laois in Ireland’s midlands, southwest of Dublin, about 160 miles From Belfast). I talked to the priest there, and to some extent he agreed with me that Anne-Marie, whose birth I was expecting, should be baptized in Orthodoxy. But there were no Orthodox Christians in our family, so the bishop to whom the priest turned for advice decided that Orthodox Baptism for my daughter was possible if one of the parents became Orthodox. At that time I was Lutheran and my husband was a Roman Catholic. Therefore, we baptized Anne-Marie in the Catholic Church.”
But her interest in and respect for Orthodox icons never ceased to bear fruit. In the Church of St. Colman in Stradbally (ROCOR) Astrid noticed an icon of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. She seemed to feel the special presence of this saint there. And again it was a paradox: Astrid refused the priest's offer to embrace Orthodoxy, believing that Orthodoxy was open to Anne-Marie but not to her. It was obviously very hard for a Lutheran woman to embrace an unfamiliar, “foreign” faith, especially when no one in her family belongs to this faith. It took a while before Astrid’s inner convictions allowed her to begin preparations for Orthodox Baptism. She was a catechumen for over two years, beginning December 2000. And only in January 2003 was Astrid baptized in Orthodoxy with the name Johanna. The Baptism was performed in the Jordan River during her stay at the convent of Mt. of Olives in Jerusalem, where there is also a chapel of St. John the Baptist.
“There I made friends with one of the nuns, Sister Seraphima, and she came to visit us in Northern Ireland,” Johanna says. “At that time a new trial awaited us: Our son Pascal was diagnosed with cancer at the age of eleven. Nun Seraphima, who had a small portion of St. John of Shanghai’s vestments with her, gave us half of it. My son and I prayed in front of St. John’s icon for healing. By the way, Pascal confessed to me that while the doctor was speaking to him about his illness, he felt the presence of the Savior in the hospital ward. By the grace of God and through the prayers of St. John of Shanghai my son recovered, and we (taking his younger brother with us) went to San Francisco to thank the saint for his help.”
As Johanna recalls, in that California city, where the amazing Russian saint lived for many years, she really wanted to tell someone about the miracle of healing. She shared this with the monk who later showed her the house where St. John had lived, his office, the church where he often served, and the icon in front of which he prayed, offering up his petitions for orphans transported from China to the United States. That pilgrimage became an unforgettable joyful experience. When Johanna, Pascal and his younger brother returned to Belfast, the first thing the five-year-old boy exclaimed as he hugged his father who met them at the airport was, “Dad, I saw St. John!”
McBride family has bee marked with miraculous and amazing events, but this hadn’t yet brought them all to Orthodoxy. As Johanna points out, “I can’t force them. My eldest son says that Orthodoxy is the right faith, but there is also a road to this faith.” Surprisingly, Johanna’s only surviving daughter Lucy was the first among her children to convert to Orthodoxy—at the age of eight. The girl was very impressed by one of the family’s guests, priest Andrei Logvinov, who as Johanna said, “didn’t take a leave of absence from Christianity for a single moment; he was like a saint.” After talking with Fr. Andrei, Lucy told her mother (at the age of seven) that she would like to become an Orthodox nun! Of course, that childhood desire remained in the past, but the true faith of Christ entered Lucy’s life—through her familiarization with the Orthodox Church.
Now Lucy, like Pat’s and Johanna’s three sons, lives separately from her parents. So far only the female part of the McBride family has converted to Orthodoxy. The men remain Catholics despite their respect for the Orthodox Church. Will they embrace Orthodoxy in the future? We don’t know. But it is not easy for the Irish (especially from Ulster) to leave Catholicism and join the Church of the first Christians and apostles, even if they are convinced that the fullness of Christ shines in it. Incidentally, Johanna's parents departed this life as Lutherans, although her mother came to love St. John of Shanghai in a special way and even made the sign of the cross (for the first time in her life) in front of his icon a few moments before her death (which coincided with the feast of St. John).
After working in the British National Health Service for many years and then retiring, now Johanna carries out her missionary service at the Church of St. John of Shanghai, located (since November 2017) in the courtyard of the McBrides’ house on Ashfield Street. ROCOR clergy who travel from England celebrate the Liturgy here, usually once a month. On other Sundays, the typika is read by laypeople. The language of services is English, which is certainly convenient for parishioners of different nationalities and for local residents who are interested in Orthodoxy. It is gratifying that Johanna, having made the difficult journey from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy, has become not only a parishioner, but also an active organizer in the life of the parish community. In her service there is also help for those seeking to embrace Orthodoxy or wishing to learn more about the faith that gave our world many wonderful saints, including John of Shanghai and San Francisco, now glorified on Irish soil in a church bearing his name.
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Strange Fire
by Fr. Barnabas Powell
STRANGE FIRE
Recently, Dr. Vincent Synan, Dean of the Divinity School and Regent University and long time historian of the Pentecostal and Charismatics movements, commented on the explosive growth of the Pentecostal movement across the increasingly Christian Southern Hemisphere by saying that those who want to deal with Christians will not be able to ignore the Pentecostals since they are on track to become the predominant expression of the Christian faith in this growing part of the world.
Just a few days ago the New York Times published a story concerning a recent scientific study on the brain activity of someone while they spoke in tongues. As an aside, one wonders why the Times cannot hire an editor who knows enough about the religious world to know that Pentecostal is not spelled “Pentacostal!”
As a former Pentecostal pastor, I was once asked if I still speak in tongues now that I have converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Having been raised in this sub-culture of the Christian faith, I was blessed to be pastored by a Pentecostal pastor who was also open to the wider Evangelical movement. He taught us to value education (not a widely held opinion in the older versions of Pentecostalism) and he taught us to learn from the wider Christian world. While he regrets my conversion to Orthodoxy, he has never treated me with anything less than love and respect.
Oh, and as for the question mentioned above, the answer is “no” I no longer speak in tongues, unless you consider liturgical Greek a gift of the Spirit.
I contend that the growth of Pentecostalism and the less strident Charismatic movement is a result of a theological poverty in Western Christianity that can be seen as early as the “filioque” controversy and the unintended theological consequences that followed. The emphasis of the West on rationalism and the weak and sometimes bizarre forms of mysticism that developed in the West gave rise to both the over reaction and sad necessity of the Reformation which gave rise to the even more rationalistic movements of Calvinism and legalistic, sterile, piety of the 1st and 2nd so-called “Great Awakenings.”
All of this led to the subsequent Holiness movements of the 19th century along with the multiplying of Christian “denominations” on the American continent, and eventually led to the outbreak of the Pentecostal movement at the turn of the 20th century.
The human longing that gave birth to the Pentecostal movement is not bad in itself. The fundamental and basic hunger that is addressed by Pentecostalism is a desire for intimacy with the Uncreated God. This is good and God-given. We were meant for intimacy with the Divine.
But the theological poverty that was the atmosphere of the birth of Pentecostalism guaranteed that the very good desire would be quickly corrupted by weak theological support. And the movement bears this out. All one has to do is turn on religious TV to discover both old and new heresies finding fertile ground in the hearts of ungrounded and disconnected Pentecostal believers.
One of the earliest heresies was the so-called “Oneness” heresy concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. Once again, the weak theological grounding of Western theologies concerning the Trinity produced the natural over reaction of some in the young Pentecostal movement to receive the “revelation” of the oneness of the Godhead. They began to teach a form of “modalism” and insist that God is not a trinity of Persons, but only One Person – Jesus. Beginning with the “new issue” of baptism only in the name of Jesus, these often sincere and fervent believers, cut off as they were from the wise theology of centuries of Christian theology, made it up as they went along.
One might have hoped that as the movement matured it would outgrow the excesses of its past, but the Oneness Pentecostals actually make up a third of all the Pentecostals in the world. The recent movie “Jesus Camp” is an example of both the biased view of the secular world toward people of faith and the easy target Pentecostals make of themselves by due to their being cut off from the wise and sobering theology of the Orthodox Christian faith.
But weak theology on the doctrine of the Trinity is not the only “strange fire” that burns in the fields of Pentecostalism. The so-called “Prosperity Gospel”, the hyper-individualism that seems to reign within the movement and all its offshoots, the emotionalism that leads to nothing more than religious sentimentalism, and even the weakness of dependence on ecstatic experiences that even seem to feed a tendency toward sexual immorality, can all be found in abundance in Pentecostal movements.
Reading this you may wonder if I see any good in my former Pentecostal roots. You may be surprised to read that I consider Pentecostalism the greatest hope for Western Christianity to correct the theological mistakes of its past. I am convinced that Pentecostalism is God’s gift to the West to draw Western Christianity back to a more ancient and healthier theological experience with God.
Pentecostalism is the poor man’s mysticism, and, as I said above, a clear cry for intimacy with God. I am indebted to my Pentecostal roots for fanning the flames of this desire for intimacy for God and for an experience in Christian community I cherish to this day. It eventually led me home to the Orthodox Church where, instead of burning my spiritual house down with “wild fire”, I found a wise fireplace for the fire kindled in my heart by my Pentecostal upbringing. Thank you, Brother Holder and Open Bible Tabernacle. I shall be in your debt forever.
But the only remedy for the spiritual sicknesses that pervades Pentecostalism is a return to, or perhaps a discovery for the first time of, the wisdom of the Undivided Church.
This must include rigorous theological work that take seriously the truth that we cannot truly understand what the Holy Spirit is saying to His Church today unless we understand what He has said to His Church in the past.
The foolish behavior of making final choices about deep theological truths before we have gathered all the relevant theological evidence has produced too many spiritual casualties to be allowed to continue.
Pentecostalism is not going away. Christians from the more ancient traditions of the Church had better become well acquainted with this religious movement because societies are increasingly affected by this religious phenomenon. Pentecostals must abandon the prideful notion that their movement dropped out of heaven completely disconnected from the historical realities around them. The shallow “me and Jesus got our own thing going” mentality will never lead to anything more than a perpetual spiritual kindergarten.
In the end, Pentecostalism may find itself increasingly dissimilar from Christianity.
Finally, as history shows, the Church eventually comes to grip with theological truths in the face of heretical threats. May the blessed and live-giving Holy Spirit give courage to the hearts of His people to pas on a robust and healthy Christian faith to future generations. The souls of precious and God-loved persons are at stake here.
THE FIRE IS KINDLED
Pentecostalism is poised to become the dominant expression of Christianity in the West. The phenomenal growth of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches as well as the mainstreaming of Charismatic worship “styles” means that Pentecostalism and its emphasis on the immediate and intimate experience of the Presence of God in a believer’s life is fast becoming normative for the vast majority of Western Christians.
I remember years ago as a boy in a classical Pentecostal church (Assemblies of God) hearing about the non-pentecostal churches in our area. They thought we were crazy and they warned their people to stay away from “those people.”
Now, those same non-pentecostal churches are singing worship choruses during services and their people are lifting their hands as they sing as a sign of worship. Eyes closed, hands raised, these people in these non-Pentecostal churches are following the successful and packed Pentecostal churches they see around them. In less than 30 years the influence of Pentecostalism has gone mainstream.
The vast majority of so called “mega-churches” are Pentecostal or Charismatic in nature.
As a former Pentecostal pastor, some have asked me if there is any benefit I see in my previous Pentecostal world.
As I think of this, I remember a relative of mine asking me if I’d ever consider returning to the Pentecostal fold. He asked in hopes of finding something that might convince me to abandon my “foolish” journey to Orthodoxy. I had to smile when he asked, knowing his sincerity and honest desire to “rescue” me from my folly. He really meant well. He really loved me and wanted the best for me.
But I had to look him in the face and say there was no way I’d go back after having discovered the “treasure hidden in the field.” I had “sold all I had” to “buy” this field and there was no need to go back.
I am grateful for my Pentecostal background but would have to actually “unlearn” much of what I have learned over the subsequent years to be able to return to what I believe is an inherently childish Christian theology.
Having said that, I would like to discuss briefly where I see the great value of Pentecostalism in remedying some theological poverty in the West.
One of the main reasons for the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment (mutually and historically connected events) was the scholasticism of the Roman Catholic world at the time. Scholasticism, in my opinion, was neither good nor bad, but, as with most historical developments, had both positive and negative consequences.
One of the negative consequences was the emphasis on a legalistic framing of theological truths.
It is no surprise that the vast majority of the Protestant Reformers were Augustinians. And it was the Augustinians who were at the forefront of the Scholastic movement in Roman Catholicism. There are sufficient numbers of Orthodox critics of Blessed Augustine, but I won’t join their chorus. However, I am convinced that the theological system initiated by this great doctor of the Undivided Church had tragic consequences centuries after the passing of this great man. Consequences unintended by him and certainly unforeseen.
The Protestant Reformation accepted the theological system of the day from the Roman Catholics lock, stock, and barrel. They simply came up with different answers to the same questions, hence the split in the Western Church. What then developed historically was a theological system that was left intact and unquestioned by the interlocutors. The fight was about the answers to established questions and not about the theological questions themselves.
Soon after the Reformation (some would call it a Revolution, the first of many more to come) there were divisions among the Reformers all along the same rationalistic and theological framework already accepted.
The results of this religious development rocked along for several centuries until the Methodist movement in England and the sorted “Awakenings” that occurred in Great Britain and then in the United States. These “revivals” of religious fervor were always marked by demonstrative displays, whether it was the “mourner’s bench” at the front of the church buildings that later developed into the “altar call” area in the front of many Pentecostal churches, or the ecstatic displays chronicled by reporters of these “Awakenings” during the height of these “outpourings.”
The people were hungry spiritually and gifted orators were able to whip this “hunger” into a frenzy of religious demonstration which turned into periods of religious devotion for a time. These movements also has a sociological component as well, reaching the poor and “great unwashed” masses with both a sense of hope and spiritual fulfillment.
But then there was a “need” for another “revival” when the devotion waned, as it always had in the past.
What followed was a successive number of “revival” movements that spawned whole new denominations
The so called “holiness” movement so important in the initial revival work of the Wesley brothers of Methodism developed into new “holiness” movements meant to either “recapture” the purity of the initial Methodist movement or to restore the perceived “power” of the “first century church.”
At the end of the 19th century several revival movements claimed to have rediscovered the “missing theological truth” that would propel the Christian message forward, and all of these movements depended on touching that part of the human soul that longed for true intimacy with God through Christ.
But the hunger of the human heart was still unsatisfied by these movements and the theological underpinnings of these various revival movements still left many cold. Especially when the natural maturing sociological pressures were brought to bear on these new Christian movements.
The beginning of the 20th century was then ripe in the West for “another” revivalistic movement, both spiritually and sociologically.
THE FIRE FALLS
As I scanned my previous historical overview, I noticed huge gaps in the narrative, but to fill in all those gaps would necessitate a book.
What I am trying to do is create some sense of context to the Pentecostal movement to give the reader a perspective as to why the Pentecostal movement happened and why it seems to be fast becoming the dominant Christian expression of the majority of Christians in the West.
I also intend in this post to begin talking about the positive aspects of the movement as I see it.
At the turn of the 20th century small groups of Christians began reporting certain people “speaking in tongues” first at a small Bible college in Topeka, Kansas and then at a small store front “holiness” church on Azuza Street in Los Angeles. Early Pentecostals were, for the most part, from “holiness” churches like Methodism or other “holiness” groups that believed in “second blessing holiness” or sanctification which gave the believer the “power” to lead a holy life.
When one looks at all these historical movements, from the early works of John and Charles Wesley, to the British Keswick “Higher Life” movements, to late 19th century “faith healers,” to the emergence of the Pentecostal movement, all these movements had one overriding motivation: to “restore” Christianity to its former glory and power.
Every offshoot since the beginning of the Pentecostal movement has similar goals.
Even when the “holiness” movement spit into Pentecostal (Assemblies of God, United Pentecostal Church, Church of God, and others) and non-Pentecostal movements (Nazarene Church, Wesleyan Churches, Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches) they still maintained this distinctive of believing their particular movement was some kind of restoration or rediscovery of the power of the Holy Spirit given to the first Apostles that had been “lost” somewhere along the way.
William Seymour
Typically, these Pentecostal churches were led by strong personalities, and this religious movement allowed both men and women to pastor. It didn’t discriminate as to race either. William Seymour, the pastor of the little church on Azuza Street where most say the modern Pentecostal movement started was an African-American. Many of the leaders, especially in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World denomination, were black. There was an egalitarian value to this movement.
The movement was also marked by both personal demands for “holy” living, which usually meant that Pentecostal believers avoided the “worldly” entertainments of the day and strict prohibitions against alcoholic beverages, and by ecstatic religious experiences, the most notable being “speaking in tongues” or glossolalia.
It is not within the scope of these articles to explore this historical subject thoroughly, but the above should give the reader at least a beginning in understanding the infancy of Pentecostalism.
As a former Pentecostal layperson and as a former pastor of a Pentecostal church, I owe a debt to my upbringing. These folks taught me the name of Jesus and shaped me to be both passionate for God and devoted to Him.
The good I see in Pentecostalism, and the reason I believe that the movement can be of great help to Christians in the West in rediscovering an Orthodox Christian faith, is that:
First, Pentecostalism throws into start relief one of the fundamental poverties of Western Christian theology – The Person of the Holy Spirit. A whole series of books could be written to talk about this point alone.
When the West failed to balance the sterile effects of rationalism with a doctrinally and patristically informed mysticism, it set itself up for just the kind of pendulum swing it now sees in Pentecostalism. The human soul demands intimacy with God, and this intimacy is meant to be as real and as knowable as God is Himself. Reducing the faith to mere assent to propositional statements falls into the heresy of Docetism.
Second, Pentecostalism reinforces a sense of “mission” in their adherents. The whole point of receiving this “power” from the Holy Spirit was never just to make a person “feel good,” but to set that very person free to win the lost and spread the Good News. This movement is now sweeping through Central and South America, the African continent, and even in secularized Europe and the United States challenging the religious establishment everywhere it goes to try to match its missionary zeal.
Finally, Pentecostalism dares to believe in miracles and God’s direct intervention into the lives of everyday people. This “expectation” of God’s work in a person’s daily life makes God more than just a far off deity keeping score of your good and bad deeds. This God is a God Who cares about your sick child, your dire circumstances, and your eternal salvation. That kind of personal faith is a source of great comfort and encouragement.
These positive aspects of Pentecostalism are certainly not exclusive to this very young movement, but with the phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism, it certainly is important to note since your neighbor or even a relative is probably involved or touched by the Pentecostal movement.
THE FIRE FAILS
As I have said previously, I am convinced the modern Pentecostal movement offers the Christian Church a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the timeless faith of the Apostles and the balance of mystery and rationalism that has all but been lost in the Christian West.
However, I also believe that Pentecostalism is a system of theology that cannot and will not bring anyone to the fullness of the faith
“once for all delivered to the saints.”
This is not because Pentecostal people are “bad.” It isn’t because Pentecostal or Charismatic theology is “wrong” or “evil.” It is because the underlying theological foundation for Pentecostal and Charismatic theology is poverty stricken. It is simply too weak to bear the weight of the fullness of the Apostolic faith.
Coming as I do from a Pentecostal background, that word “Apostolic” holds a particularly pregnant meaning. Unfortunately, my understanding of “apostolic” was quite deficient during my days as a Pentecostal.
In fact, the very tendency in the West to break off into “factions” and “denominations” is particularly strong among Pentecostals. This revealed itself early on in the movement over the issue of water baptism. Being cut off from the wisdom of the Church these sincere believers embodied all that was wrong about the Protestant innovation of “Sola Scriptura.” They did not have access to the wise understanding of the Trinity preserved in the Church so they mistook the trinitarian teaching for tri-theism and reacted against what they perceived as a heresy.
But this so-called “new issue” demonstrates the first theological poverty of Pentecostalism: A poverty of communion with the saints.
Since Protestantism tends to reduce the Christian faith to certain theological propositions, the Pentecostals allowed this reduction full flower in their attempts to “recapture” the power of the first century Church. Feeling no sense of connection with their fellow Christians throughout the ages, the Pentecostals only care for those first century believers that they see as their true heritage. They are also willing to adopt other heretical groups through the centuries that seemed to bolster their notions of ecstatic experiences as THE theological stamp of approval.
This lack of connection with the Church through the centuries meant that the Pentecostals were left to their own devices and fell into many, if not most, of the heresies of the past.
The second poverty of Pentecostalism is the rank individualism that permeates the entire movement. this again is a flowering in the Pentecostal movement of the general poverty of Western Christianity. Individualism reduces faith to “me and Jesus got our own thing going” and reduces Church to either a religious pep rally or, worse yet, a Christian self-help group. Worship is measured by how it made me “feel” rather than what it reveals about the Uncreated God. Hence Pentecostals and Charismatics tend to measure their spiritual growth by their experience of “victory” in their personal lives. But the narcissistic weakness of this religious poverty guarantees a perpetual spiritual “kindergarten” for these believers.
One of the unintended consequences” of this gross individualism is the “cult of personality” that naturally arises when a dependence on individual abilities is emphasized. Pentecostal groups are usually founded on some strong personality who has the gift of gab and a flare for the theatrical.
Unfortunately, “the arm of flesh will fail you” and the cultural landscape is littered with the sad lives of men (and some women) who simply could not maintain the fevered pitch expected of them from their loyal following. The stories of emotional, psychological, and event physical manipulation, all for “God’s glory,” are simply too numerous to mention.
Another poverty that I see in Pentecostalism is the weak theological dependence on ecstatic religious experiences. This true hunger in the soul of a person for an authentic and intimate experience of the presence of God cannot be truly satisfied with self-centered religious phenomena. In fact, much like sweets ruins your appetite, so the spiritual “cotton candy” of shallow ecstatic religious experiences, brought on as much by psychological peer pressure as by anything divine, deaden this good hunger and eventually creates an almost narcotic dependence on these less than satisfying religious events.
Interestingly enough this emphasis of emotional experiences not only leads to a kind of religious addiction, but also feeds other physical desires as well. Most Pentecostals do not like to talk about the strong minority of sexual weaknesses that tend to dominate many Pentecostal and Charismatic sub cultures. This emphasis on keeping the emotions heightened at all times, or reducing worship to experiencing a religious “high” tends to reinforce a lack of physical discipline. Recent events are the exceptions that many times prove the rule.
Finally, the greatest poverty I see in Pentecostalism is theological. While this is changing, Pentecostalism has traditionally been suspicious of theological training. Seminary instruction was considered suspect, and a reliance on the education of the “Spirit” was more valued. But beyond that there is a real and debilitating “historical amnesia” among Pentecostals that impoverishes their religious education.
There is so much wisdom preserved in the Church that is simply unknown to most Christians nowadays and that ignorance is dangerous. It means there are generations of believers who will have to learn all over again lessons already learned by their brothers and sisters of the past.
What you don’t know CAN hurt you.
There are hopeful signs. A recent Pew Poll found that speaking in tongues, a strong distinctive of Pentecostalism, is waning. Post-graduate work is becoming not only acceptable among Pentecostals but expected. And whole new denominations have formed by Pentecostals and Charismatics wanting to overcome the inherent weaknesses of their own shallow religious traditions by discovering the wisdom of ages past.
For me, however, the natural home for Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians is the Orthodox Christian Church. Here there is a trustworthy “fireplace” for the Pentecostal “fire.” Many are surprised to hear me say that it was my Pentecostalism that prepared me for my journey to Orthodoxy.
In Eastern Orthodoxy there is a comfort level theologically for paradox and mystery. As opposed to the West where rationalism has been allowed free reign, Orthodoxy’s emphasis on the present work of the Holy Spirit provides a theological balance for a sterile theological rationalism that may excite the mind but leaves the soul cold. Pentecostals and Charismatics will discover in Orthodoxy the wisdom necessary to avoid all the pitfalls so often present in the world of Pentecostalism.
There are theological remedies for and spiritual medicine that provide authentic healing and spiritual health for those weary of the eternal search for the everlasting “goose bump.”
Pentecostalism reveals the primary spiritual poverty of the West. This is its greatest gift to the Christian world. But we cannot remain ignorant of the fatal weaknesses of Pentecostalism without condemning generations of sincere believers to a life of a perpetual “spiritual kindergarten.”
So, to all my precious Pentecostal and Charismatic friends, I say to you what Philip said to Nathanael:
“Come and see!”
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THE THORNY PATH TO GOD
An interview with Elena Skorokhodova — actress, film director, and playwright
An accomplished actress on stage (sixteen years in the Pushkin Theatre, Moscow) and screen, Elena Skorokhodova is also a director, writer, and author of plays, including the prizewinning, Don’t Throw Ashes on the Floor. Her creative talent has led her to an acute perception of the unfolding drama of individuals along her life’s path, and the fate of her country.
– Elena, tell us about how you came to faith in God?
– I would have to tell you my entire life story in order for it to make sense. I was born in an atheistic soviet family. By the way, that atheism was superficial. We believed in goodness and justice, as something that goes without saying. No one ever looked deeper into the source of this belief in our souls. A true atheist is a terrible being, deprived of morality, and obsessed with no more than his own material gain by any means. After all, he has nothing other than this earthly life; there will be no other life for him, and therefore he has to grab the maximum of goods and pleasures here. As Dostoevsky wrote, “If there is no God, then everything is allowed.” But we, of course, were never that kind of atheist.
When I was four years old, my father once pointed to the sky and said that it was infinite. I remember that it took my breath away. I began to think about it. Later, when I became interested in mathematics, I tried to apply the principles of that science to my search for truth. If you logically seek the first cause of anything at all, you will inevitably run into that emptiness from which everything originated. But emptiness itself cannot produce something outside of a certain mysterious power. In general I thought a lot about this, drew graphics with the beginning point of existence (racking my brains over the question, “But what came before that point?”), read various philosophers, and even created my own philosophical concepts. Then the Gospels somehow came into my hands. This book created an amazing impression upon me. I suddenly had a sharp perception that the truth was precisely here. It was as if I saw with my own eyes how Christ preached, worked miracles, was crucified, and resurrected. Truly resurrected! No such perception of reality has ever occurred to me with any other reading. Well, my eyes having been opened, I ran to the church, bought a stack of books, immersed myself in Church life, and began to “terrorize” my family and friends. I am a very emotional person and easily carried away; and of course, my missionary attempts at converting my parents took on a somewhat aggressive character at first. But with God’s help, everything eventually normalized.
It seems to me that any person who purposefully seeks the truth will come sooner or later to an Orthodox church, regardless of his nationality, ancestral religion, or other factors. The truth is simply here, and nothing else has meaning.
– Often newcomers to faith who have firmly decided to enter into Church life try through their zeal not according to knowledge to reach great spiritual heights, taking on asceticism beyond their strength. This usually has sad consequences. Were you able to avoid this?
– I made all the mistakes that could be made; because, as I said, I have a very emotional nature. When I understood that the truth is here, in Orthodoxy, I took off running it to meet it. It was like with the sports that I used to be involved in. I prayed and over-prayed… I threw away all my clothes, leaving only a long, black skirt, a formless sweater, and a faded headscarf. I renounced the fallen world. I had a crazy look in my eyes, and tried to convert everyone immediately. People simply ran away from me. But now I have calmed down. I live quietly, and perform no ascetical feats. I fast, but not as in a monastery, rather according to my strength. Without fanaticism. If I can get through the day without judging anyone or having vile thoughts, that’s good. I leave my close ones alone. Everyone has to go his own way. I can only attract people through my own example, and therefore I have to look at myself more, and not at others. I read an abbreviated prayer rule, I go to church every week and on the great feasts, and try to receive Communion once a month. I ask to be allowed, though unworthy. So far, they allow me. This is my rhythm.
– You are an author and playwright. Is it possible to write about the evil that surrounds us in a way that will not tempt those who doubt?
– I write in parables and place the accent on what I see as good and bad. My accents are definitely Orthodox Christian. I have one play, for example, about Khodja Nasreddin.[1] But in spite of its eastern flavor, this play is absolutely Orthodox Christian in accent. I took a particular blessing before beginning this work. After all, the characters in this play are not worshipping Christ. I was cautious about that theme. But they let me get into this story, and I am very glad that it turned out well.
– For whom do you write?
– I try to write in a language that worldly people can understand, those who are “not called to the King’s feast,” those who have not fallen into place spiritually, and are “sitting on the fence.” I know that state very well. We need to extend a hand to such people. We must not turn away those who are not yet with us, but who are no longer against us.
Although, my poem, “Song About Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow…” is a truly religious work, created, it could be said, at the request of the director of the Orthodox School of Art, Sergei Mikhailovich Mamai, and by the blessing of the school’s spiritual father, Priest Nicholai Pushkin. But I repeat that my creative work is mainly secular. I would say that it is aimed at those who came to the theatre and not to the church, so that they would want to go to church after watching the show. Or that they would at least think about something serious. After all, the most important thing is that they begin to think correctly. Then, with God’s help, good sense and thoughtfulness will take them where they need to go.
Of course my spiritual father, Fr. Nicholas (from the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of the Sign in Peryaslavl Sloboda) knows about all of my creative searches. Batiushka’s wife, Matushka Vera, is the most valuable fan of my creative work in all its multi-faceted hypostases.
– What do you consider the most important mission of a cultural worker, an artist in the greatest sense of the word? And how does he keep from falling into the sin of vainglory?
– A true artist should transform the world, inspire it, uplift man above his animal nature, raise his thoughts to heaven, and reveal to him the image of God that is within himself. Bad art “animalizes” the viewer, arouses his instincts, and finally lowers his human dignity. Like the film currently popular in Russia, Stilyagi. It is a very talented film that wonderfully exalts vice. Would that we could exalt virtue just as brilliantly!
From their contact with a creative work, under its influence, people should become better, kinder, more merciful. Families should become stronger, alcoholics and drug addicts should become fewer, harlots should be changed… Any creative work should have a moral foundation under it.
Someone might ask, “What about the art flourishing all around us? Romanticized criminality, beautified debauchery, the charm of vice?” We should not orient ourselves toward what is flourishing around us. Check your actions against the reactions of your conscience. Your conscience will not deceive you. “O child of eternity, do not please the spirit of the times.”
How to struggle with vainglory? I do not know. My life seems to be such that it is hard to get overly vainglorious. All along my creative path there is always one person or another actively humiliating me, scolding me, or trying to prevent me from going on. Thank God for it, I suppose.
– Your play, Don’t Throw Ashes on the Floor, touches upon a painful theme in our country—drunkenness. You have thought much about the causes of this evil, and how to war against it. How do you think an Orthodox woman could help her husband who is unable to overcome his passion for drink?
– She can only help in such a situation with prayer. And with love. Hysterics and moralizing will only intensify his passion. A drinker falls into a vicious, closed circle: he drinks in order to forget his shame that he drinks. It is like the drunkard in the story, The Little Prince.[2] There is also the purely physiological dependency that develops, which is not so easy to break.
I have had an experience with this in my own life. I consciously married a man with a problem. I knew that he was a drinker, but I ignored that fact, assuming that we could overcome everything with God’s help. What is most important is that he himself had the desire to struggle. At first everything worked out beautifully, and I became overly proud. But later humility caught up with me; we were dealt a crushing blow, and his vice triumphed with renewed strength. I nearly lost my mind from despair. How many tears I shed… I was sobbing endlessly every day.
But now, when I analyze the situation from the beginning—that is, the decision to bind my life with him—I understand that is was all logical. And all in my style. I was looking for a podvig,[3] and rushed into it in a big way. But what is characteristic is that my former husband no longer drinks. At all. And I am sure that this is the result of his having stopped then. If he had not stopped, he would not be around today, most likely. A terrifying feeling of hopelessness exuded from him then, as if the finale was near. Of course, I could not just pass him by. I had to climb into the situation and begin saving a friend. Otherwise, it would not have been like me. But probably it was not a good idea to get married then. A marriage requires love. Christian love of neighbor is not enough for marriage. But during that euphoria of a temporary victory over vice, we both felt such an emotional upsurge that we mistook it for feelings of mutual love.
There is a certain story about Orthodox marriage, which migrates from one book to another. I am talking about the girl who brought various suitors whom she liked to her spiritual father, but the latter turned them all down. However, when the girl brought a young man whom she didn’t like at all, the spiritual father blessed her to marry him. So the girl married him out of humility, and twenty years later finally felt infinite love and gratefulness to this man for having provided such a happy family life. It is a good story, and probably has happened. But it should in no way be an example for blind emulation! That is the story that attracted and disoriented me then. Unanimity of views is a necessary condition, but it is not enough to create a family.
– Why do actors and actresses usually have troubled personal lives, and their marriages are not long-lasting?
– Because this profession is very bad for one’s emotional health. In the morning at rehearsal you love one person, in the afternoon at the shooting you love another, while in the evening at the show, you love a third. When you come home at night, you finally see your own beloved husband or wife, and you can’t understand who you really love. I have a play with this theme called, In Search of Lost Grig. The central figure is an actor who looses his own “self” in his roles.
When anyone comes to me for help in preparing themselves to enter a university level theatre school, I start by trying to talk them out of it. Acting is a dangerous field. It is an idle way of life, an outwardly easy existence… Bad endings… For every successful fate there are scores of broken ones. Even outward success often has a seamy side.
We play risky games. We play with life, with relationships. “Why are you so calm? Stir yourselves up!” That is what they would say to us in acting school. And we did stir ourselves up, because calmness is not a theatrical state. We would make ourselves look with lust at people of the opposite sex, because love between a man and a woman is the main theme of all theatre. But do you recall what the Gospels say about this? Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Mt. 5:28). We would intentionally arouse passions in ourselves, explode our tempers. The consequences of such behavior have been tragic.
The instability of actors’ and actress’s marriages are no coincidence. Non-traditional orientations are widespread. The problem of alcoholism is on a broader scale in acting spheres than anywhere else. Now drug addiction has been added. It has been added everywhere, but it is affecting actors and actresses on a grand scale. There are no official statistics; this is my own observation. But I am observing attentively.
– Does this mean that acting and Orthodoxy are not compatible?
– For the most part, of course they are not compatible. But on the other hand, The wind bloweth where it listest (Jn. 3:8). Acting is without a doubt a spiritually dangerous profession. A judge, for example, is also in a dangerous profession because he daily breaks the commandment, Judge not (Mt. 7:1). Or a teacher—My brethren, be not many masters [teachers], knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation (Js. 3:1). But all these professions are nevertheless needed. People also need the world of culture, which means that those people who work in the arts are also needed, including actors and actresses.
– In your opinion, what should an Orthodox woman be like?
– It goes without saying that she should not be a sex-symbol. An Orthodox woman should be a symbol of virtue. But that does not mean that she is obligated to look like a bag lady. She should be beautiful, regal, decorous, radiating spirituality. Like our last Empress, Alexander Feodorovna Romanova. I mean the real one, and not the one in G. Panfilov’s film.
–Many Orthodox women (and men, for that matter) do not maintain their physical form, do not exercise or play sports, and consider all that unimportant (that is, not spiritual). You are a master figure skater, and studied as a child with the famous trainer, Elena Tchaikovskaya. A few years ago you were featured in a television program called “Aerobics,” where you introduced people to a healthy lifestyle. What can you say to people who have not experienced the “joy of fitness?”
– I would say that the body is the temple of the soul, and you can’t just let it go; you have to work on it. Of course, physical fitness should not turn into a goal by itself. No one needs any soulless Schwarzeneggers. But a rich inner essence should have an attractive outward form, in my opinion. When I see some Orthodox mothers and other married women in baggy “uniforms,” hunched and shapeless, I feel torturously pained. And I feel sorry for their poor husbands. It is especially hard for them now that they are surrounded by the propaganda of vice; on street advertisements, in the press, on television—half-naked beauties are everywhere… We need to intelligently stand up to all this with our own essentially different beauty. Glory be to God, lately I often see just such truly beautiful women in our church—attractive, shapely, well and tastefully dressed, but at the same time modest and decent, I hope.
– You loved mathematics from your childhood, and even intended to study in the math department of Moscow State University. A woman with a mathematical mind who also writes plays and poems is quite a rarity. Do your mathematical abilities aide your dramatic and poetic creativity?
– “In every science there is as much truth as there is math,” according to Immanuel Kant. I would add that this applies to every sphere of life. Mathematics penetrates everything; it is the skeleton of life, the frame. Math is logic. How could a playwright do without logic, without a chain of cause and effect, where one thing leads to another? It is impossible to write poems without an inner feeling of symmetry. I don’t understand what is meant by a “humanitarian mind.” Is it something deprived of a system and built upon feelings? I am sure that anyone who does not like math simply had bad math teachers. It is impossible not to love mathematics, because math is harmony. It is like nature, Mozart, Pushkin… By the way, toward the end of his life, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin became interested in mathematics and various numerical systematizations. I read about this interest of his. If there had been good math teachers in Tsarskoe Selo,[4] then perhaps free-thinkers would not have come out of it, breeding the Decembrists and other anti-theistic movements. Mathematics is a very good stabilizer in life. All mathematicians are even-tempered, morally stable people—at least the ones I know.
– Elena, how did your parents raise you, and how do you raise your own son?
– I was raised strictly, in the soviet way. But I was raised without Christ. Therefore, we didn’t really understand why we had to be good. My child knows about Christ from infancy. He is consciously learning about Him. However, the world around us is more corrupt today than it was during my childhood. To make matters worse, my child is physically handsome. I had a more modest appearance at his age. I am afraid for him, and pray.
– What is a woman’s role in Russia’s spiritual and moral regeneration?
– Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova put it very well: “The influence of good women is the greatest power, after God’s mercy, to form good men.”
– You participated in the First All-Russia Forum of Orthodox Women. Tell us about this, please.
– To be honest, I came away with mixed impressions of that forum. The first day it was conducted in the Christ the Savior Cathedral, in the Church Council hall. There were very many people, television reporters, etc. T. A. Golikova, S. S. Zhurova, and other governmental representatives were presiding. All of them spoke some general words about mercy and virtues. But the most important issues, “juvenile court,”[5] for example, were left for the second day, which took place in the Pilgrimage Center on Lomonosov Prospect, without television cameras, and without the former presidium. Everyone was divided into four sections. In the section where I presented my report on how the mass media is corrupting us, there were thirty people—all upstanding matushkas. As a stage director, I can really feel when there is no action on the stage, but only text, because it gets boring right away. That is how it was at the forum. I immediately went on the attack when I got up to give my presentation, saying that everyone sitting there will of course agree with what I have to say. After all, we are of one mind. But it is important that those who make governmental decisions hear it. The situation in the country is catastrophic. The nation is dying out, the people are drinking themselves to death, families are breaking up, and the children’s homes are full to overflowing… Our long-time Russian values are no longer valued, everyone is obsessed with making money, and so we stupidly squander our natural resources. Industries are not developed, and science is locked up in the pen. We import everything we need in exchange for gas, oil, and coal. What good can come of it? What will we do when the resources are gone?
I am very worried about the fate of Russia. I am a patriot, and I feel my connection with my homeland in an incredibly emotional way, with my whole organism. I do not know if that is how I was raised, or if it is something inborn in me—this feeling of being part of the land, the roots, and this pain over the fate of my fatherland.
Russian people are in general a special people. I feel this very strongly when I interact with foreigners. Furthermore, what works there does not work for us. This is a particular country, with a particular culture, and a unique language which I think is the richest in the world, which arose and developed out of our national uniqueness. These are also our national resources, only they are spiritual resources, and likewise should not be sold on the market like gas, oil, and coal. They should be preserved, cultivated, and made the foundation for renewal, to the glory of God.
What I fear most of all is that calculating people who have no feeling for the country as their homeland might come and replace our current government. Glory be to God, our current government is Orthodox, and patriotic. There is hope that Russia can come out of its dead end; that it will not perish and disappear from the face of the Earth. Our main hope, of course, is in the Lord; but we the people should also act. The right words are not enough. We need action. Nothing comes without labor. That is how our world is made.
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Notes:
[1] Khodja Nasreddin is a character from Islamic Central Asian folklore that is well known to Russians thanks to the Russian language book, The Story of Khodja Nasreddin, by Leonind Soloviev.
[2] By Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
[3] A Russian word in spiritual lexicon that implies a specific spiritual labor, requiring emotional and spiritual strength.
[4] The poet Pushkin attended the university that existed in his time in Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg.
[5] The issue of a juvenile justice system is very poignant in Russia today. It refers to the laws now prevailing in Western Europe which lightly separate children from their parents for absurd reasons. For example: a family is poor—take the child to a children’s home. A mother slaps the child for misbehaving—child abuse! Take the child away. This is a system that could seriously undermine family traditions in Russia, and cause great personal tragedy.
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Shawn Goldman, Canada & Israel: My Journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity
This is Deep Heart Orthodox's first full video detailing Shawn's journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity through his son Kai's battle with brain cancer. After years of spiritual seeking, God finally called to Shawn through Kai's terrible illness. Watch this story of a father's love for his son that brought Shawn to the heart of the Father's love. Tragedy, triumph, courage and an openness to the call of the Spirit are all detailed in this moving opening episode on the Deep Heart Orthodox YouTube channel.
Deep Heart Orthodox is the YouTube channel for Shawn Goldman, M.Ed. Shawn grew up in a Jewish family in Toronto, Canada, and lived in Israel for seven years. He completed high school in Jerusalem and spent three years in a combat unit of the Israeli army. After having a moral crisis when serving on the West-Bank, Shawn left Israel and entered a long period of exploring various spiritual paths including existential philosophy, Buddhism, psychotherapy & shamanism, eventually making his way into the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Shawn obtained a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, and went on to complete a three-year certificate in transpersonal therapy. He later graduated from Canisius College with a Masters degree in education. He is also, slowly, working his way through a degree in theology. Currently, Shawn is writing about his experiences in the Israeli army, his journey to Orthodox Christianity and his time as a public school teacher in Toronto.
Deep Heart Orthodox YouTube channel will explore Shawn's journey from Judaism to Orthodox Christianity, along with the stops he made along the way. We will look at the similarities and differences between Orthodox Christianity, Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Eastern Catholicism, Shamanism and other paths. We will also explore the heart-centred spirituality of the Eastern Orthodox Church (Hesychasm), and how this tradition can offer meaning and healing for modern audiences. We will also explore issues around child-loss, women in the Church, the Israel-Palestine conflict, alternative health, the war in Ukraine, public education, mental health and suicide: all issues close to Shawn's heart.
Our first video will detail Shawn's journey to the Orthodox faith through his son Kai's battle with cancer, and how that battle actually brought Shawn back to a relationship with God after years of spiritual seeking. Our second video will explore the theological topic of God, evil and childhood cancer; how can a good and loving God inflict cancer on an innocent child?
Shawn is currently a member of the Greek Orthodox Church in Ontario, Canada, is a father of three children and teaches in the public school system.
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"MY CHOICE IS ORTHODOXY!"
"The depth I found in the Orthodox Faith is not found anywhere else. It is not easy to become Orthodox, considering how many religious conflicts there are in the world. But for me, the sign of God is the opportunity to become an Orthodox Christian and the opportunity to find my people.
No matter what trials await me, I accept them like a true Japanese warrior.
I am not afraid of death, I am afraid of being unworthy of God's love."
KARI-HIROYUKI TAGAWA - (Japanese-born American actor, martial artist)
INS.
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"I exist, seek to find Me!" - The conversion of the Dutch monk and hermit Jozef van den Berg (+2023), former actor, from atheism to Orthodoxy
Jozef (Joseph) Van den Berg was a Dutch former mime and a great famous stage actor. He was born on August 22, 1949 in Beers, Netherlands and had no relationship with God at all, he was an atheist. He was married with four children. Everything changed one day in a performance in which he played the role of an atheist and said: "There is no God, there is no God." He then heard a voice inside him saying: "I exist, seek to find me!" From that moment something changed in him. He truly sought and found Him!
In fact, he had a very good friend who informed him that she knew St. Porphyrios and that she would be going to Greece and if he wished to write him a letter, she would give it to him.
When his friend arrived in Greece, she went to St. Porphyrios and as soon as she told him about Joseph, he beamed with joy and told her that he had to see him. Indeed it happened, Joseph went and found him in Greece. St. Porphyrios spoke to Joseph about Orthodoxy. In Greece, he also met St. Paisios in Mount Athos. He also met with St. Sophrony Sakharov in Essex, England. Miraculously something changed inside him and he decided to give up everything, money, fame, family, friends, publicity to become an Orthodox Christian and live as a hermit in a hut in the Neerjinen forest in the Netherlands.
The only things he took with him when he set out to find God were a bicycle and a trunk with a few clothes. He was baptized and became an Orthodox Christian. His hut was visited daily by many people, also by priests and bishops from all over. He had recently come to Greece for health reasons where he was hospitalized and fell asleep in the Lord at the age of 74, in October 2023 in a monastery in Soho, near Thessaloniki. He had cancer. Ηe was unable to walk and was confined to a wheelchair.
ANT. INS. YT.
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Letter To A Roman Catholic Friend
Can one be Roman Catholic and Orthodox? I would like to share with you a brief letter that was published some time ago in an Italian Orthodox parish newsletter. Its author, Archpriest Gregorio Cognetti, is the Dean of the Italian parishes under the Moscow Patriarchate. This letter was generally liked by the Italian Orthodox converts, and also received a high degree of appreciation among some cradle-born Orthodox (it was, for instance, translated into Romanian); I hope it may be prove an interesting reading and a source of inspiration for all of you.
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Chapel Hill (U.S.), March 1982
Dear Bill,
Even though you never asked it directly, I feel from your words that you do not yet understand why I left the Roman Church to become Orthodox.
You were even a member of one of the least latinized Byzantine parishes, you seem to say, why, then?…
I guess I owe you an explanation, since, a long time ago, when we were both members of the Latin church, we shared the same feelings. These same feelings brought both of us to a Byzantine rite parish, and then myself to Orthodoxy. You could not have forgotten the criticisms that we moved to the Romans: the continual insertion of new traditions in place of the old ones, Scholasticism, the legalistic approach to spiritual life, the dogma of papal infallibility. At the same time we both reckoned the legitimacy and correctness of the Orthodox Church. A Uniate parish seemed the optimal solution. I remember what I was saying in that period:
I think like an Orthodox, I believe like an Orthodox, therefore I am Orthodox.
Entering officially into the Orthodox Church seemed to me just a useless formality. I even thought that remaining in communion with the Roman Church might be a positive fact, in view of the goal of a possible reunification of the Churches.
Well, Bill, I was wrong.
I believed I knew the Orthodox Faith, but it was just a smattering, and quite shallow for that. Otherwise I would not have failed to know the intrinsic contradiction between feeling Orthodox and not being reckoned as such by the very same Church whose faith I stated I was sharing. Only a non-Orthodox may conceive an absurdity like being Orthodox outside of Orthodoxy. Individual salvation does not only concern the single person, as many Westerners believe, but it must be seen in the wider frame of the whole Church Communion.
Each Orthodox Christian is like a leaf: how could he receive the life-giving sap if he is not connected to the vine? (John 15:5)
Orthodoxy is a way of life, not a rite. The beauty of the rite derives from the inner reality of the Orthodox Faith, and not from a search for forms. The Divine Liturgy is not a more picturesque way of saying Mass: it comes forth from, and strengthens, a theological reality that becomes void and inconsistent if excised from Orthodoxy.
When the spirit of the Orthodox Faith is present, even the most miserable service, done in a shack, with two paper icons placed on a couple of chairs to serve as the iconostasis, and a bunch of faithful out of tune as the choir, is incomparably higher than the services in my former Uniate parish, in the midst of magnificent 12th century Byzantine mosaics, and a well-instructed choir (when there was one).The almost paranoid observance of the ritual forms is the useless attempt to make up for the lack of a true Orthodox ethos. I was deluding myself when I believed I was able to be an Orthodox in the Roman communion.
It was a delusion because it is impossible.
The continual interference of Rome in the ecclesiatical life reminds you in due course who is in command. To pretend to ignore this is self-delusion. I tried to avoid the problem, feigning to be deaf and dumb, and repeating to myself that I belonged to the ideal “undivided Church”. My position was quite sinful. First of all, because the undivided Church still exists: it is the Church that never broke with Her past, and that is always identical to Herself: in other words, the Orthodox Church.
Then, because that feeling of being a member of the Undivided Church, which I considered so Christian and irenical, was instead a grave sin of pride. I was practically putting myself above Patriarchs and Popes. I believed I was one of the few who really understood the Truth, beyond old and sterile polemics.
I felt I had the right to ask the Eucharist both from the Romans and the Orthodox, and I felt unfairly treated when the latter denied it to me. I have a great debt of gratitude towards a priest who, in that time, refused to give me Communion. Instead of softly speaking of canonical impediments, as if the matter were a merely bureaucratic problem, he said me bare-facedly:
If it is true that you consider yourself an Orthodox, why is it that you keep belonging to heresy?
I was deeply shocked by those words, and for a long time I did not return to that Church. But he was right. I had understood what Saints, Fathers, Bishops and Priests had not understood for centuries.
According to me, the schism between East and West was a tragic misunderstanding based merely on political problems and the ponderings of the theologians. And in doing so I indirectly accused many holy people of calculation, superficiality and bigotry. And I was mistaking all of this for Christian charity…
No, Bill, it is impossible to be both Roman Catholic and Orthodox at the same time.
The rite is not all that important. After all, the Latins were Western Rite Orthodox for many centuries. I agree with you that, after the separation, the Romans and the Orthodox have still much in common, but this is not enough to consider both of them part of the same Church. Beyond the well-known doctrinal differences, there is the approach to the Supernatural, the same life of the Church that makes impossible to live the two religious realities at the same time.
We state in the Creed:
“and (I believe) in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”.
Until a unity of faith comes, they will be two churches.
The theory (also affirmed by John Paul II) that the Romans and the Orthodox are still the same one Church (despite the schism, and in a mysterious way) sounds well, but it doesn’t hold. It is based only on beautiful words. The differences of faith, on the other hand, do exist, and they are not a mere word-play.
Yes, I know that theological dialogue has been started, and it is even possible (everything is possible to the Lord) that eventually the unity will be reached. But beware! Many good Romans believe that the differences might be resolved by means of a clever statement that, owing to its genericness may sound acceptable by both parties. Having reached an agreement on this statement, both would interpret it according to their understanding, in fact keeping their opinions. Worse still, some propose a unity in diversity, without a formal commitment of faith from any part, but under the universal co-ordination of the Pope of Rome.
Well, all of this is impossible. The Fathers taught us that the the agreement on common faith must be univocal and unequivocal.
Orthodoxy follows the spirit of the Law, rather than the letter. And since it is impossible for the Orthodox Church to introduce new doctrines, it falls on the Romans to abandon a millennium of innovations, and unreservedly return to the faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church.
This is the only possible platform for an agreement.
History has shown the fallacy of otherwise based unions. And now let me ask you a trivial question: Bill, is the Pope infallible (on his own and not by virtue of Church consensus, as specified in the 1870 dogma) or not? He may not be fallible and infallible at the same time, as it would happen if the two churches were still part of the same Church. One of the two must be wrong.
But Vatican II allowed a great freedom of opinions…
you may answer. Yet this is a sophism. The true Church may not fall in error. If you believe that your Church has erred, or that She is actually erring, you deny that She is the true Church.
I embrace you with unchanged friendship and love in Christ.
Gregorio.
(PS. For the record, Father Gregorio Cognetti told me that the recipient of this letter, soon afterwards, converted himself to Orthodoxy — he is now a tonsured reader of the O.C.A. in Florida — and that this letter was a major factor in his conversion)
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Study Finds More Converts Than Expected
by Nicole Neroulias
A new study of Orthodox Christians in America has found a larger-than-expected number of converts, mostly from Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant backgrounds.
The report, released by the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkeley, Calif., surveyed 1,000 members of Greek Orthodox or Orthodox Church in America congregations, which represent about 60 percent of America’s estimated 1.2 million Orthodox Christians.
Although Orthodox churches were historically immigrant communities, the study found that nine out of 10 parishioners are now American-born. Thousands of members had converted to the faith as adults: 29 percent of Greek Orthodox are converts, as are 51 percent of the OCA.
“I would not have expected this many,”
said Alexei Krindatch, the Orthodox Institute’s research director.
“My sense was that in Greek Orthodox, it would be around 15 percent, and OCA maybe one-third.”
The study also found unexpectedly high numbers of converts among clergy — 56 percent in the OCA, 14 percent in the Greek Orthodox church. In both cases, the higher OCA numbers reflect that group’s use of English in its worship services, he added.
These findings could mean that Orthodox churches are growing in America, assuming there aren’t equal or greater numbers of Orthodox Christians leaving for other faiths; researchers won’t know until they conduct a 2010 membership census. The findings, however, indicate that other Christians are increasingly seeking a more traditional worship experience, Krindatch said.
“In the case of Roman Catholics, those are mainly people who are not quite happy with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council; they are looking for the Catholic Church as it used to be in the past,”
he said.
“In the case of evangelical Christians, those are people who have very strong personal beliefs, they know the Bible very well, they are frequent churchgoers, and eventually they want to join an established church with deep, historical roots.”
Compared to a 2005 study of American Catholics, the survey found more Orthodox Christians responding that they could not imagine belonging to another faith group, and fewer agreeing that how a person lives is more important than his or her religious affiliation.
“In all possible measures, belonging to a church is more important to Orthodox than Catholics,” Krindatch said.
The study’s other findings showed a majority of Orthodox Christians would support allowing married bishops, but not female priests. They also want their clergy to work with their Catholic and Protestant counterparts to coordinate a common date for Easter, which typically falls several weeks later for the Orthodox due to their use of an older liturgical calendar.
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On the Search for Faith and Orthodoxy in the USA
—Many scientists consider it impossible to believe in God. However, you are a man of science, and at the same time a believer…
—I came to the conviction that behind everything in the world stands Divine providence. Nothing happens by chance.
I rely on concrete data. We cannot close our eyes to the billions of miracles happening every day—the miracles that are truly everywhere around us. You go to church or travel to Mt. Athos and everywhere you hear about miracles. They can’t be just the fruit of speculation and fantasy. What, are millions of people throughout the whole world lying, as if they’re all part of an international organized disinformation structure? Why would they lie?
Every year, they send hundreds of photos to St. Anne’s Skete on Athos, of babies born to infertile couples that prayed at the wonderworking icon and relics of St. Anne. There is a huge volume with descriptions of these miracles, which happened not many centuries ago, but in our time.
A scientist should be able to explain what happens around him. A man of science doesn’t have the right to dismiss what doesn’t fit his longstanding ideas. To explain all miraculous supernatural events as coincidence and chance is anti-scientific. The most logical and sound explanation of what happens is the existence of the Triune God. When you accept this, then you will see that there are many striking phenomena, such as the creation of unceasing mental prayer. Moreover, you find yourself on the path of happiness, where God is love. Who would we have become if we didn’t have Christ?
—Tell us about your connections with the Holy Mountain.
—I try to go to Mt Athos every time I go to Greece, sometimes two or three times. There is a wondrous tranquility on Mt. Athos and in many places in Greece.
Athos immerses you in the mystical life and teaches prayer.
Elder Ephraim of Philotheou
—You are fortunate to be acquainted with Elder Ephraim of Philotheou. Tell us about your impression…
On the Search for Faith and Orthodoxy in the U.S.—I’ve been to the monastery the elder built in Arizona1 a few times. I’ve also visited other monasteries in the U.S. opened by Elder Ephraim of Philotheou (there’s twenty in all).
I’ve had the opportunity to speak with him a few times. I didn’t know St. Paisios or St. Porphyrios, but I’m happy that the Lord deemed me worthy of the chance to meet Elder Ephraim.
—Are there people who live the spiritual life in the U.S.?
—Greek Orthodox churches are full.
But then, does everyone who goes to church lead a spiritual life? I seriously doubt it. Elder Moses the Athonite wrote a good book about it. I have largely the same impression as he—many things in American Orthodoxy are alien to me. They use electric organs in the churches2 (which for me is unthinkable), many people commune without any kind of preparation, and they don’t live spiritual lives.
Churches have turned into clubs and community centers.
You can often find priests without beards and with Catholic elements to their garb.
The most grievous thing is the apostasy in dogmatic issues. I’ve been told that Catholics are allowed to commune in Orthodox parishes on the West coast. Inconceivable! An Orthodox can be blessed to marry a Lutheran under the pretense that she was baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity.
Many justify such precedents of condescension. But you can go very far astray this way.
The Paterikon contains the words of one elder: “Sin begins with a white lie.” According to him, large stones cannot fill up a container, but tiny bits of sand can fill it to the brim.
I rejoice when I meet priests who have not departed from Orthodoxy. Elder Ephraim of Philotheou does not accept such modernism and vociferously condemns it. It has caused definite friction with some representatives of the higher clergy, but someone has to stay on top of things and call a spade a spade.
On the other hand, I have met people who lead true spiritual lives. I have noticed there is a thirst for Orthodoxy in the world. Many Protestants and Catholics are coming to Orthodoxy because they crave spirituality, which their own doctors cannot give them. Western Christianity has degenerated.
Orthodoxy is not just going to church once a week on Sundays. We possess a great spiritual treasure—the Jesus Prayer, asceticism, prostrations, fasting…
I am certain that we must separate from Catholics and Protestants and not try to become like them. No compromises!
Many scientists in the U.S. are beginning to turn to Orthodoxy. They are reading the Paterikon and other Patristic texts. In Greece, we sometimes criticize the Church and priests, but we need to begin to peer into the depths of our own souls and to correct ourselves. A garden has both thorns and flowers. The real truth is standing in front of us—it is Christ. God is love. Can there be anything higher than to live in love? Dostoyevsky said that without God, everything is permitted. Perhaps the disorder and confusion of the modern world is due to the fact that we have lost all rules, values, and orientation?
—What would you like to say to young people about religion and Christianity?
—May God grant that all people would look at life rightly, that starting every new day we would say to ourselves, “Today I will try to give love,” and that we would strive to curb sin. Let us try not to deceive anyone—neither our neighbors, nor the state. If we try to act this way, our homeland will come out of this quagmire.
George Daliaris spoke with Prof. Nikos Stergiou
Translated by Jesse Dominick
AgionOros.ru
6/16/2017
http://orthochristian.com
AgionOros.ru has offered its readers an interview with the world-famous scientist and author of much innovative research Nikos Stergiou. Prof. Stergiou is the dean of the Biomechanics Department of Nebraska University Omaha.
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Father Thomas Carroll, Ireland: From Irish Soldier to Orthodox Priest
By Christos Mouzeviris
Father Thomas Carroll is a 70-year-old priest in Dublin, Ireland.
He grew up rural county Tipperary, in a family with strong military ties. His father fought in Gallipoli, while his great uncle was at the battle of Thessalonica during the first World War.
Growing up in a Catholic secondary school, he felt called to take holy orders but was told he was not ready, so he followed the family tradition and joined the military.
“We seem to be a family that was always involved militarily. There was discipline among us, but the rules were not too strict. Yet, I could never consider myself a free spirit,” he recalls.
It was while serving in Cyprus with the UN in the 1960s that Father Carroll’s life, vocation and future were set on a path that led him to a narrow brick-built church in the centre of Dublin. A church which stands out from others in the city because of richly gilded decorated screen which separates the altar from the nave, but also because it is orthodox.
To prevent its servicemen being influenced in anyway, the UN did not permit any interaction between them and either communities. However, Father Thomas could not entirely follow the discipline, that both the peace keeping forces and his family have edified him.
“I had a few acquaintances with Cypriots, but the only person that I had a lot of communication with, was a Greek orthodox priest in a village,” he recounts. Father Thomas would meet up with him on a regular basis, to talk about theology and argue regarding everything around it.
“We often could not agree on anything, but he left a lasting impression on me,” he continues.
That prompted him to explore the Orthodox religion further, but when he returned to Ireland there were only a handful of Greeks and Cypriots living in the country. They did not have an established community, so nobody could help him.
It was only when the Archbishop of Great Britain Methodios, established the first parish in Ireland in 1981, that became possible for him to talk to people with the same interest.
Prior to this he had contacted the Greek Orthodox archdioceses in London, but nobody responded to his letters. “They probably thought that I was some guy seeking only information,” Father Thomas says.
When the parish has been established by Methodios, a friend happened to mention it to him by chance. He then got around there straightaway, but it took him another 5 years before he decided to make the “big jump” and convert.
“I eventually became an Orthodox in 1986, so I do not do anything in a hurry as you see,” he jokes. “But after that, I was committed. I took early retirement from my job in 1996 and went to study theology for 5 years.”
After the conclusion of his studies, he initially served as a deacon for four years in his new parish, before eventually becoming a priest. And to him it is a vocation, not his profession.
Ultimately, it was the outward portrayal and the beautiful liturgies of the orthodox dogma, that attracted him to it.
“I came from the tradition that initially the Catholic Church came from, with many similarities in liturgy and rituals. But after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in the ‘60s, everything changed and became more simplified,” the priest explains.
For Father Thomas, the traditional poignant ceremonies had been stripped from the Catholic faith. Services had become to some extend “protestantized” in the method of worship, minimalised. So, he realised that it was not for him.
This inevitably left a big hole in his spiritual life, that he couldn’t relate to this new situation in the Catholic Church.
“This is where Orthodoxy entered my life and gave me something tangible to hold on to. Something about the church itself, its layout, the rituals even the smell of incense, would grab you straight away,” he describes.
At the time, among the Orthodox community in Ireland, there were about 20 nationalities. The original parish was founded for all orthodox Christians within the island of Ireland, regardless of any jurisdictions.
As immigration increased into Ireland, many of these new arrivals established their own communities and Father Thomas’ parish eventually became primarily Greek. The community has grown in recent years due to the increasing emigration from Greece, thus the future of his parish looks secure.
For Father Thomas, a church is a living thing and must adapt to society, rather than society adapting to it. Another reason why he admires the Greek Orthodox Church, is because it reaches out to every nationality.
“All Greek orthodox archdioceses in the UK, have up to 30% clergy that is non-Greek, thus the liturgies are commonly English speaking. Other jurisdictions like the Romanian or Russian, are operating in their language solely for their own people,” he says.
The priest believes that breaking down language and nationality barriers is very important for a modern religion, especially when attracting young individuals.
Otherwise they could be at the mercy of fundamentalist evangelical churches, while others may become attracted to radical Islam. “They are giving them something to live for, when often they have nothing,” claims Father Thomas.
He is the only one who converted to Greek orthodoxy in his family. “It did not make any difference to most of them, but I think today they would be happy with my choices,” he says.
“If you asked me how Ireland is responding to a church of different dogma about 50 years ago, there would be quite hostile reaction to it. Now nobody cares. At the last count, there were about 130 different religions the country, most of them established during the past 15 years,” Father Thomas explains.
About 50% of those are ethnic African churches. “But the people of Ireland are accepting all religions in their country now. Maybe the reason is that most of them do not go to the church themselves,” he continues.
“Young people particularly, who are carrying on the catholic faith in Ireland, have absolutely no animosity to anybody outside this tradition,” he concludes.
Father Thomas is one example of a man, who did not just follow a religion due to family, community or national traditions. He researched, reached out and when the time was right, he found what was best for him.
IRE2
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US Protestants are converting to Orthodoxy in large numbers
Another movement that the media fails to bring to your attention: the massive conversions of Protestants to Eastern Orthodoxy, the original form of Christianity.
More than 79% of clergy in Orthodox Churches were previously pastors of various denominations. There have been cases of entire parishes converting to Orthodoxy.
As some pastors-turned-priests explain, the switch is the 'natural' result of spiritual barrenness and dissatisfaction, as Protestant denominations adopt liberal stances and values, for example, legitimizing homosexuality.
These departures from normal Christian morals disappoint people and they start looking for the True Church.
The turning point was 1987 when 2,000 evangelicals from the Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas converted to Christianity.
A Russian bishop, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeev, interviewed towards the end of the video, explains:
"Now in Protestant Churches and the Church of England, processes are taking place which bring believers to the question: Does it even make sense to remain in such a church?
I must say straight out that we do not consider the Protestant Church and the Church of England to be "Churches' in the true sense of the word. Because they don't have, probably the most essential characteristics of the Christian Church. They don't have the true comprehension of the sacraments, they've lost the Apostolic succession of hierarchy. And for the past 10 years, they have undergone such a horrifying process of liberalization that traditional Christian morality is not preached any longer in their churches".
INS. YT.
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Arizona: "Peace at Last" - Father Ephraim (Antony - Frank Atwood) before his funeral
Father Ephraim (Frank Antony Atwood) prepared for his funeral in his monk's habit. May our Lord give him Eternal rest.
The state of Arizona executed Frank Atwood by lethal injection yesterday at the state prison in Florence. Atwood, 66, was sentenced in 1987 for the kidnapping and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Pima County, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson.
“Today marks final justice for our daughter Vicki Lynne. Our family has waited 37 years, eight months and 22 days for this day to come,” Debbie Carlson, Vicki Lynne's mother, said while choking back tears during the media briefing following the execution. “Vicki was a vibrant little girl with an infectious laugh and a smile that would melt your heart.”
According to Frank Strada, Arizona Department of Corrections director, this is Frank Atwood's final statement, first addressing Elder Paisios from the nearby Saint Anthony's Monastery who accompanied him to his execution:
“Thank you, precious Father, for coming today and shepherding me into faith. I want to thank my beautiful wife who has loved me with everything she has. I want to thank my friends and legal team, and most of all, Jesus Christ through this unfair judicial process that led to my salvation. I pray the Lord will have mercy on all of us and that the Lord will have mercy on me.”
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ARIZONA: FRANK ATWOOD, WHO WAS TONSURED A MONK WITH THE NAME EPHRAIM, HAS BEEN EXECUTED
June 8, 2022
It was confirmed not long ago that Frank Atwood was executed this morning by the State of Arizona through lethal injection. Atwood was sedated at 10:10 a.m. and was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m., media witnesses said. He was 66 years old, having been sentenced in 1987 for the kidnapping and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Pima County, Vicki Lynne Hoskinson. Frank maintained his innocence till the end.
“Today marks final justice for our daughter Vicki Lynne. Our family has waited 37 years, eight months and 22 days for this day to come,” Debbie Carlson, Vicki Lynne's mother, said while choking back tears during the media briefing following the execution. “Vicki was a vibrant little girl with an infectious laugh and a smile that would melt your heart.”
According to Frank Strada, Arizona Department of Corrections director, this is Frank Atwood's final statement, first addressing Elder Paisios from the nearby Saint Anthony's Monastery who accompanied him to his execution:
“Thank you, precious Father, for coming today and shepherding me into faith. I want to thank my beautiful wife who has loved me with everything she has. I want to thank my friends and legal team, and most of all, Jesus Christ through this unfair judicial process that led to my salvation. I pray the Lord will have mercy on all of us and that the Lord will have mercy on me.”
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Orthodoxy Has A Great Future In Guatemala
Conversation with Abbess Ines, head of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Guatemala
Abbess Ines (Ayau Garcia) – Abbess Ines is the head of the only Orthodox parish in Guatemala – the Monastery of the Holy and Life-Giving Trinity, the “Lavra of Mambre”, under the Patriarchate of Antioch. She comes from an influential and well known family in Guatemala which has produced many outstanding individuals. When [then Catholic] Sister Ines was 36 years old, she made an extreme change in her life, leaving a Catholic monastic order and becoming an Orthodox nun.
Holy Trinity Monastery was founded by Mother Ines and Sister Maria Amistoso in April of 1986. In 1989, the engineer Federico Bauer donated a piece of land on the shores of Lake Amatitlan, not far from Guatemala City, to the monastery. The land is 1188 meters [about 3900 feet] above sea level and is located near Pacaya, one of the most active volcanoes in Central America.
On the day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in 1995, the “Act of Creating an Orthodox Church in Guatemala” was signed by Bishop (now Metropolitan) Antonio Chedraoui of Mexico, Venezuela, Central America and the Caribbean (of the Antiochian Patriarchate), and also by the head of the monastery, Mother Ines and her nuns, and 25 parishioners.
Buildings rose on the site donated by Federico Bauer and the consecration of the monastery took place in November, 2007, with 18 participating clerics, who came to Guatemala especially for this occasion.
The iconography in the Monastery church is being done by Russian masters from the International School of Icon Painting, based both in the town of Kostroma in Russia and in the USA.
In 1996, the government of Guatemala gave the monastery control of an orphanage built to house 800 children, the “House of Rafael Ayau” in the country’s capital, Guatemala City. At present they have just over 100 boys and girls – from newborn babies to 16 year old adolescents. The workers at the orphanage give the children a high-school education and familiarize them with basic Orthodox concepts. They also give them professional skills. Soon, the orphanage will be moved to the monastery.
In February of 1997, the church of the Transfiguration of the Lord was blessed in the orphanage building. In the absence of a priest, the services are led by a reader [called Reader’s Services]. Two children’s choirs sing antiphonally, where one choir sings one stanza, and then the other choir sings the next stanza. The exclamations and the dismissal are read by Mother Ines. The parish is made up of Guatemalans, Arabs, Greeks, Russians, and Ukrainians.
Holy Trinity Monastery has fairly large agricultural holdings, where rabbits and fish are raised and vegetables are grown. All that they produce goes to the orphanage.
In July of 2009, Mother Ines came to Russia to visit the holy places and to broaden her ties to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Abbess was accompanied Sister Maria and two teenagers from the orphanage.
This conversation with Mother Ines took place during that visit, on a trip from Sretensky Monastery to the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra. [lavra: a large monastery]
– Mother Ines, how did you become acquainted with the Orthodox faith?
– When I was 20 years old, I became a Catholic nun, and entered a monastery under the order of the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos. They gave me to read the conversations of St. Seraphim of Sarov with Nicholas Motovilov, and the texts of the Orthodox Liturgy. What I read astonished me to the depths of my soul. One of the nuns showed me several Orthodox icons, including a reproduction of Andrei Rublev’s “Holy Trinity.” I was interested, and I burned with a desire to find the roots of all of this. From that time, I began saying the “Jesus Prayer” [“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”].
I studied theology for ten years – with the Salezians in Guatemala, with the monks of the Holy Spirit in Mexico, with the famous theologian Jean Daniélou in France, and with the Jesuits in Belgium and El Salvador. I continued to be bothered by one question: where are the treasures to be found that I came across at the beginning of my Monastic life? Once, in Brussels, the nun who was in charge of my spiritual growth brought me to a Russian Paschal [Easter] service. It was held in a chapel on the second floor of a private home, but even then, I did not find an answer to my question.
I did not want to serve in Latin America: in those years, because of the spread of “liberation theology”, Church-government relations had become seriously strained. I received permission to go to the Philippines. There, to my amazement, I met more Sisters of the Dormition, who were seeking the same thing I was. We found out about Eastern Rite Catholics, and considered reforming our community to use the Eastern Rite. Unfortunately, most of the Sisters left, and several got married. Only the native-Philippine Sister Maria and I remained. The nuns of my order, which has great influence in the Philippines, asked me to leave the country, because they thought I was spreading revolutionary sentiments.
I went to Jerusalem, where I finally came into contact with real Orthodoxy. Sister Maria came to me from the Philippines, and together we traveled across the Holy Land, started to learn different liturgical services, and talked to priests.
– How did your family take your conversion to Orthodoxy?
– My father is a very educated person, but when I told him that I want to join Orthodoxy, he said “What do you mean? This does not exist in nature!” Nevertheless, our conversation intrigued him. In a few weeks, Dad went to Turkey. When he got there, he hailed a cab, and told the taxi to take him to an Orthodox church where he could see an Orthodox service. After that, he went by ship to the Holy Land, where he did the same thing. From that time, Orthodoxy became for him a reality.
My mother supported my decision right away. She was interested in Russia, and read a lot about it. She read a book about the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska with great interest. When the Antiochian Bishop Antonio Chedraoui, during his first visit to Guatemala, received some Arabs into Orthodoxy, my mother also went forward and was received into the Orthodox Church through chrismation. Later, my father also became Orthodox.
– How did you join the Antiochian Church?
– Sister Mary and I decided to form an Orthodox monastery in Guatemala. On our way from Israel, we stopped in the Swiss town of Chambésy [not far from Geneva], where we visited Metropolitan Damaskenos Papandreu of Switzerland (Patriarchate of Constantinople). He blessed the opening of our Monastery, and said that we had to join a jurisdiction of one of the Orthodox patriarchates. To do this was not easy. The Orthodox Churches that had a presence in Latin America then did not have a particular interest in the local population. The Patriarchate of Constantinople served the Greeks, the Patriarchate of Antioch – Arabs, the Russian Patriarchate – Russians. Only after asking for ten years did we get accepted by the Antiochian Church’s Metropolitan Antonio (Cherdaoui).
For the registration of a parish, we needed 25 signatures of Guatemalan citizens. We did not have that many parishioners. So my relatives, the relatives of another nun, Sister Ivonne, and our friends also signed the petition.
– Why did your community choose the ancient Russian style when building your church?
– We sincerely love Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church. The crosses on our cupolas are Byzantine, but everything else is Russian: the architecture, the icons, and the frescos. People, when they see the Russian cupolas, understand right away that there is an Orthodox church before them. Our parish keeps to Russian traditions in the services, keeps to the Julian calendar; and the nuns wear the Russian monastic habit.
– Where is the monastery?
– We built the monastery 20 kilometers [about 12½ miles] from Guatemala City, on the top of a hill. Around us there are woods, and not far away, Lake Amatitlan. It is a very beautiful place, although it’s true that it is not entirely fitting for a holy monastery because we are so close to the city and come across the problems that exist in any suburb of a large Latin American city–overpopulation and the drug trade.
–How large is the Sisterhood?
– Three nuns live in the monastery. Besides me, there is Sister Maria Amistoso, who is a native of the Philippines, and Sister Ivonne Sommerkramp who came to the monastery five years after it was founded. She is a Guatemalan with German roots. Earlier, we had more nuns.
– Who performs services?
– We do not have a permanent priest yet. Two times a month, groups of missionaries and volunteers come from places such as the USA, Norway, Japan and other countries; and those groups always have a priest. Russian priests have also been with us: Protopriest Basil Movchanuk – head of the church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Yartsevo, in the Smolensk region; and Protopriest Igor Kropochev – a helper for the missionary department of the Kemerovo diocese.
–Tell us about the monastery’s orphanage please.
– Our orphanage, the oldest and largest in our country, is located right in the heart of Guatemala City. My ancestor, Rafael Ayau, organized it in 1857. He was a philanthropist, and a very pious person. Monks from the charity organization “Caridad” took control of the orphanage from [my ancestor] don Rafael when he, from France, invited them to do so. In 1960, the government deported the members of “Caridad”, and the government itself took over the care of the orphanage. After 40 years, President Alvaro Arsu handed over control of the orphanage, which was in terrible shape, to our monastery. It is unlikely that any other politician would have done that; they are afraid of Orthodox people. Arsu was not afraid, because there were some Orthodox people in his family.
Because of changes in the social laws, our orphanage began to look more like a boarding school. In twelve years, over 1000 children from poor and underprivileged families have gone through our orphanage. All of them are raised in the Orthodox spirit. Many of them return to their parents, but do not break their ties to the monastery, and continue to go to liturgy on Sundays. Over 300 of our orphans have been adopted by Orthodox families, mostly in the USA.
The Russian ambassador to Guatemala, Nicholas Vladimir, had told me that the Russian government grants stipends for higher education in Russia to young people from other countries, and we have taken advantage of that opportunity. Two of our children, Reina and Edgar Rolando, have come with us to Moscow. They will start studying Information [Computer] Science and Engineering at a Russian university in September.
– How are your monastery’s relations with the Catholic Church?
– We have a warm, friendly attitude towards them, but the Catholic Church has been quietly waging war against us, warily, secretly. For example, after we sent our petition to register the parish with the [Guatemalan] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we did not know what happened to it for several years. When President Arsu asked the monastery to take the orphanage under its wing, I said that we could not do it, because we did not officially exist. The President entrusted his lawyer with solving the problem. As it turned out, our documents had been located in the curia the entire time; Catholics had spirited them away. Fortunately, President Arsu then gave the Holy Trinity Parish the status of a jurisdictional body by special decree.
Protestant denominations, of which there are hundreds now, do not worry the Catholics. Orthodoxy puts fear into them. There are several reasons for this, but, the biggest reason is that the Catholic hierarchy fears that the Orthodox Church will convert some of their flock. The Cardinal of Guatemala admitted this to the Russian ambassador.
Nonetheless, it is impossible to escape contact with the Catholic Church. Catholicism dominates Guatemala. My father is a public person; I was a Catholic nun for 16 years; the Cardinal is the cousin of my godfather, and has known me since childhood.
–What are Orthodoxy’s prospects in Guatemala, in your opinion?
– I am convinced that Orthodoxy has a great future in our country. Two priests, one 20 years ago, and another recently, [unofficially] converted to Orthodoxy from Catholicism, and brought their flocks with them. In total, that is over 100,000 people. They consider themselves Orthodox, though they have not been officially joined to the Orthodox Church, and, from my observations, know very little of Eastern Christianity. Among them are Ladinos (descendants of the Spanish) and Indians. Both groups intend to ask for entrance into the Russian Orthodox Church.
– What are your impressions of Russia from your visit?
– I have no words to describe the feelings that I have when I am here. I am astonished by everything: the architecture, and the interior decoration of the churches and monasteries, the architecture of the cities and towns, the nature [flora and fauna]… I especially notice the piety of the people, their deep faith, which they have preserved through decades of the godless Communist regime.
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An Unforgettable Baptism in Taiwan
In Tainan
Fr. Jonah Mourtos
November 18, 2009
Fragrance of Asia
This past Friday I went to Tainan, a large city of Taiwan. A Christian of ours urged me to go see a couple. The husband, around 42 years old, undergoes a kidney dialysis every week! The doctor told him he has no chance of living beyond ten years. This is the tenth year.
This Christian happened to meet them somewhere, and gave them the book The Way of a Pilgrim (it was translated by Catholics a while ago and recently republished). It should be noted that this couple were not Christians, and as the majority here they do not have a religion. In their younger years they went to the typical temples of idols as do all the Chinese. Slowly the book inspired them to start praying noetically, and this began to change them. The husband told me it gives him deep peace and calmness.
They had prepared a table for me in the office of their small company. I marvelled at their love. The wife had done everything in her power to bear the burdens of the office in order for her husband to peacefully do his work. They work together, you understand. They have two children.
They also bought a Holy Bible, but they didn’t know where to begin, so they started reading the Acts of the Apostles!
They deeply moved me. Naturally, they were willing for me to read a prayer for the sick, and I wore my epitracheli (stole). In fact, the husband makes sketches out of the stories of the Holy Bible and he explains them to his 2-3 employees during break time! See below the story of Job! I thought it very unbecoming to take pictures of them, but I was touched and took a photo of this one.
I explained to them that God was not playing with the devil, making Job suffer without purpose, but the opposite, showing forth Job as a teacher of angels, men and even demons what it means to love God….
We spoke of noetic prayer. I told them that if they want me to come every one or two weeks to talk, to read from the book together, provided that they would pay me nothing, I would go completely for free, which is something unheard of here, as every pastor takes something. I told them on Saturdays, but the husband does his kidney dialysis then. I await their reply, and I ask that you pray for them, and for the health of the husband, and that at sometime they be baptized. I don’t even know their name. I await their reply and your prayers.
An Unforgettable Baptism
Fr. Jonah Mourtos
February 26, 2011
Fragrance of Asia
Yesterday, Friday, we went to Tainan to baptize a couple. I had written of them in an old post dated November 18, 2009.
A few months ago these blessed people invited me. They felt the need to become Orthodox! I asked them why. They told me they felt like they loved someone and they desire to marry Him. Now is the end of hesitations.
I taught them twice a week through Skype and I visited them often. (See, this is why I write so little as I have no time). In the end we decided for the baptism to take place on a Friday after their work.
They confessed, but I cried. They had no sins! Such rare people.
The husband does kidney dialysis twice a week for the past ten years. It was not possible for them to come to Taipei. Besides, one year ago when we met the doctor told them that the husband didn’t have any life left, but God gave it to Him.
They live by selling photovoltaics. See the photos. In the office reception room they have a Gospel book! How many companies do you know that do this?
We did everything together during the Divine Liturgy, as was the order in the ancient Church:
Dedication
Beginning of Liturgy
Entrance
Baptism-Chrismation
Wedding
Trisagion (“All who have been baptized…”)
Readings for a wedding and baptism
Great Entrance
Holy Communion
Dance of Isaiah around the small table which was the holy altar and holy communion, as in the ancient Church.
I was very moved and afraid because when I took the hand of the husband I felt the plastic tubes he had for veins…how would I do the triple circle procession? The same for the “All who have been baptized….”
Yet it happened and he felt better. Afterwards they had a dinner. The restaurant was called “Eureka” as you can see, but nobody knew why.
We missed the quick train. We returned to Taipei at four in the morning with the bus. Naturally, I will go very frequently to do a Liturgy.
Their names are:
Tien Hen (husband)
Li Tsin (wife)
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December 2009 – A Historical Day In Fiji
Wednesday the 16th December 2009, the feast day of Saint Porphyrios of Aigaiou, Theophane of Basilissa and Medestos Patriarch of Jerusalem. Eight o’clock in the morning. T he contractor and his team are taking the blessing and are beginning to measure and put the indicator markers for the foundation so as to follow the design of the Church of Saint Paraskevi in the yard of the Missionary Center in Sambeto, Nandi. The day before yesterday the Cyclone passed with its frightful momentum and its incessant rains which transformed all the surrounding meadows into lakes, harassing the trees and animals and forcing the birds to hide in their dens, carrying away some men to death and leaving many areas for many days in darkness due to the loss of electrical power. Now, however, a boundless calm is spread everywhere. The clear-blue sky and the warm sun remind man, whose life returns to its normal rhythm, of the first days after the flood of Noah. The yards and surrounding trees are full of birds which fly joyfully and please their listeners with their sweet chirping. Today is very beautiful and joyful. Nothing is by accident. The first Orthodox Church in Fiji is founded in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. The elements of nature participate in their own way with our own joy, so that with much gratitude we thank and glorify our all-powerful and gift-giving God, honouring and magnifying as well His holy martyr Paraskevi, whose name and joy will from today be imprinted beautifully on this place of retreat. Archbishop of New Zealand, † Amfilochios
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Newly Baptized in the Fiji Islands
Four young Fijian girls adopted the Orthodox faith and were baptized at the Missionary Center of the Holy Metropolis of New Zealand in Fiji.
His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilochios assisted Archimandrite Fr. Christodoulos and the Priest Father Bartholomew in completing the Baptisms.
The Newly-illumined received the names Maria, Anastasia and Sophronia. May the holy name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified.
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One Soul-Stirring Experience (Fiji)
Everything seemed fine from the moment when we entered the catamaran and, leaving behind us the port of Nandi, we began to approach one after another beautiful little islands with pure-white beaches and tropical vegetation. Until, that is, we arrived at Yasawa, Ira Ira, the island of our newly-illumined sister Sophronia.
The boat was full of passengers, white tourists and brown natives, the former going to spend summer vacations the latter returning with supplies from Nandi. The Captain and crew, all natives, were completely organized and very well mannered. We looked admiringly at every island with its picturesque barges dancing upon the waves as they came alongside the boat in order to pick up and transport passengers and their baggage.
I was thinking that this was the method on the smaller islands and that for our own larger island, just as it appeared on the brochure, there would be some platform for the boat to draw alongside. Contrary to my expectation, when we arrived we saw that here as well the barges would come and take passengers and baggage and then depart quickly in the same way. They were going to Yasawa, Ira Ira.
We disembarked into one of these barges following the same procedure as the preceding boats. Our own boat was more slow-moving and therefore we couldn’t see the other boats which had passed around the cape. We were eight people inside the boat. The further we progressed the more I was thinking the Pacific Ocean was showing us its true colours. The wind began to blow with force and the waves of the sea were swelling dangerously and were literally roaring as they relentlessly hit up against the side of our boat splashing us with their salty contents. Now, however, we saw that we were passing one cape after another and the port was nowhere to be seen; we began to worry.
From the very salty water our eyes were burning unbearably and I could not see in front of me, perhaps from my little experience I would have said something to the boatman in order to assist him. He himself could not have had clear vision since he was often spreading his hand in order to take the water from his eyes.
By now we were in the open sea which necessarily we should have had to pass in order to arrive at the opposite shore where I was suspecting the port and the village of our destination would be. I began to get uneasy. The only refuge in similar circumstances is prayer. I chanted secretly the Paraklesis of our Panaghia believing that she would not leave us unprotected. “To whom else shall I flee o Pure one? And to whom else shall I run for help and be saved? Where shall I go, and where shall I find a safe retreat?” (Words from the Great Paraklesis to the Most Holy Virgin)
We approached with much effort the beach while not seeing either a port or a village. We would have to pass many more capes in order to hear from Presbytera Lydia that behind the next cape was the village. However, it was not the next cape, but rather the one after the next. After four hours struggling with the waves we finally arrived at the end of our trip. We disembarked from the boat half-swimming because there was no platform or plank, only one pure-white beach which was covered with trees providing a deep-shade.
This is the village of our newly-illumined Sophronia. I consider how for her joy and the joy of her family and her three-hundred fellow villagers who welcomed us with special joy and honour and offered us hospitality that the weariness of our arduous journey was worth it. Orthodoxy imprinted its footprint here on this remote island of the Pacific.
May the name of the Lord be glorified.
March 2010 – News from the Monastery (New Zealand)
The last several weeks have seen, with the help and grace of God, the construction of the churches of the Holy Archangels and Saint Basileios in the Monastery of our Holy Metropolis.
Recently the frame has been finished and we are awaiting now the weatherboard, the roof, electrical installation and the plumbing.
Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of all those who evolved we expect to celebrate the Divine Mysteries inside our newly erected churches in the next two months.
God willing another spring of life and renewal is being planted, by the right hand of our good God, in New Zealand.
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December 2009 – The Baptism of an Orthodox Maori (New Zealand)
“Today let companies of High Priests in spirit leap for joy, as with us they honour your memory, venerable Hierarch Chrysostom, illuminary of the Church.“
We thank the Triune God for the limitless gifts which he offers to us every day. One such gift was received on this day by as many of us who met inside the Holy Parish of Saint Demetrios in the city of Hastings.
Today the first Orthodox Maori was baptized. Archimandrite Father Christodoulos and Hieromonk Ioakeim completed first the holy mystery of baptism of the Maori—Micheal, and later the holy mystery of marriage for Michael and his Greek wife Ephigenia.
Later in the evening our joy was completed with the baptism of their three children: Stephanos, Sophia and Athanasios.
We welcome our newly baptized brothers into the Great Church of Christ, may His holy name be glorified.
YT.
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Saint Nicholas Kasatkin of Japan (+1912) and the conversion of the Samurai
Despite Saint Nicholas’ fondness for Japanese culture, the Japanese were quite xenophobic at that time and it was very difficult being a foreigner. At one point, while Nicholas was still studying, the samurai Sawabe Takuma came to the Saint’s home and pulled his sword, telling him he was going to kill him before he could start his preaching. St Nicholas Kasatkin responded to this threat of violence with peace. He asked the samurai why he was going to kill him before he knows what he will preach. Saint Nicholas proposed that the two sit together so that he might explain his message to Sawabe. Then at the end, if Sawabe does not like it, he may kill Saint Nicholas. The honourable samurai agreed. By the end of the conversation, Sawabe was convinced of the truth of Christianity and became the first convert, and eventually the first Japanese Orthodox priest.
http://apantaortodoxias.blogspot.com/2021/02/saint-nicholas-of-japan-and-conversion.html
ΥΤ. INS.
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The Uncreated Map: Christ as the Light of Yoga
Fr. Joseph Magnus Frangipani, Alaska, USA
I’m reminded of pilgrims at the Himalayan foothills seeking passage around the icy mouth of the Ganges River. Among these hikers were two very different men, one an intelligent geologist and the other a simple backpacker.
The geologist put every trust in his mind.
As he told others, “I know all there is about the composition of mountains and valleys. I know how they’re formed and why they’re here. Look, I understand everything and really don’t need backcountry camping lessons, nor do I have time to get in shape for this journey.”
So, he left unprepared, but very confident for the hard journey ahead.
Meanwhile, the simple backpacker didn’t count on his intelligence alone. Rather, he worked out every day, getting his body into good health, also while getting to know the locals who passed through these mountains. He learned where to find shelter, what places and people to avoid, and knew precisely where he was going. He was very humble about this undertaking.
At the first snowstorm the first man panicked. He forgot all about geology and his journey grew difficult and painful. The simpler man, however, brought to mind what he learned from those before him, drawing on ancient wisdom and, remembering his maps, actually wound around these mountains with much effort but safely.
One man arrived from his journey to new land.
The proud man was never found.
The secret closet, man’s heart, is the starting place where we embark on this journey. It is concealed by many thorns and bushes, within the folds of our passions, thoughts and ego. Our life, then, may seem a Russian nesting doll. When Christ comes like a gardener, we may not recognize Him. Sometimes it is only when we don’t experience Him, though, that like the Prodigal Son we remember His bread and turn to face Him, which is what repentance is all about.
When we taste life apart from Him, which is not truly life but pigs and husks, we experience a foretaste of hell. This often has profound effects upon a person. One may experience a fear of God, depending of course to the degree they are oriented toward the spiritual life, and this fear encourages us to depend on His will, on His love and grace, developing humility so that entrust our minds and hearts once more to the Holy Trinity. Each time we reorient ourselves, we experience a minor death, where we can rightfully say with St. Paul, that I die daily, and that to die is to gain, for when the hour of death comes to us, we will not die, but live eternally within the Lord.
So it is perhaps helpful here to remember our soul as depicted in Church iconography, if you remember, in iconography, the soul is often portrayed as a swaddled infant held in the arms of our Father in Christ. In this way, we remember our dependence upon God and cling to our Father, leaping into His arms and carried away by His love.
In these ways, we continue uniting ourselves to Christ.
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Now, during the service of Baptism and Chrismation, we see our union with Christ expressed in no uncertain terms. For instance, after renouncing and spitting on Satan, we announce three times we’ve united ourselves to Christ. It is Orthodox baptism – and Orthodox baptism alone – which begins to fulfill the saving work of our Lord in the human person. Here, we begin restoration of the true self and recovery from a state of corruption – perhaps, we might say the ’embryo’ sparks to life.
Contrast all this against the phenomenon coined as yoga.
Whereas in the Orthodox Church we’re called to and affirm ongoing union with Christ, yoga – which means ‘yoke,’ to bind or harness yourself to something, to establish an intricate union with – is explicitly union with someone or something other than Christ.
In learned and devoted practitioner of yoga understands techniques often involve incantations to Hindu deities, physical postures named after and dedicated to Hindu gods and goddesses, and the awakening of Kundalini Shakti – a created energy represented by a coiled serpent dormant in the spine. The creator of yoga, according to yoga, is Shiva the god of destruction.
Nevertheless, in America yoga is likened to stretching but yoga is not stretching. Yoga is a physical, mental and spiritual discipline rooted in Vedic philosophy and Hindu religion. It provides tools to unlock, or rather unblock, mysterious energies very foreign to the Orthodox Christian. Stretching is merely the physical relaxation of a muscle and little, or nothing else.
In yoga, many poses have names of gods and goddesses. For example, the pose called Viranchyasana – after the Hindu deity Viranchya – is dedicated to Brahma. Vishnua is a popular god mentioned in the Vedas and there are several poses dedicated to his avatars, to his human and animal incarnations. Then there’s Ananta, a god who even took the form of a snake, and we have the Anantasana pose named after him. The snake then reincarnated into a human, into Patanjali, author of the yogic bible, the Yogic Sutras of Pantanjali.
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Many yogic body positions also directly correspond to chakras. A chakra is what we might refer to as an invisible, spiritual pressure point. In the same way we might rub a pressure point on the physical body increasing blood or lymphatic flow, yoga contends we have a subtle body, too. Yogic postures sort of massages these points, encouraging particular channels to open up thereby attracting ‘spiritual energy.’
A lot of yogis talk about how the universe, and everything within it, is in fact musical, vibratory, and relates to frequency. For example, saying a mantra gets you in touch with some beings, a guru, a god or goddess, on one frequency, in one dimension. Putting yourself into a particular asana will also put out a vibration, a calling card, attracting energy – various subtle energies, – the way we might put a light in the window attracting someone’s attention. It doesn’t matter whether we realize this or not, believe it or not, the reality is the soul and body are intricately linked.
Yogic poses, rooted in the Hindu pantheon of gods and goddess, with names of gods and goddesses, working on subtle areas of your body and mind, are dangerous. You know, perhaps we can look at yogic poses as a sort of combination to a lock. Each asana or pattern of asanas, certainly over time, are supposed may unlock various energies.
Now this is very important: in the vast world of yoga, we find many methods of ‘picking’ these locks, many back doors corresponding to varieties of hidden powers. These powers influence ourselves and others, and are known even in yoga as white magic and black magic. I was personally initiated into these arts, in the Yoga Capital of the World.
One goal within this discipline of yoga is unlocking these chakras, these gates, within the body and soul, inviting energy to climb within you. This energy is often depicted and described as a coiled snake, known as Shakti, or kundalini, and the purpose here as most everywhere in yoga is to raise this energy into the mind so we attain the realization we are identical tGod.
So what are we yoking ourselves to during yoga?
Asanas, and really all signs and patterns within yoga – especially mantras – are false lights, like those of deep sea angler fish. This reminds me. In a yoga class, it’s not unusual to hear Sanskrit mantras and sometimes be invited by instructors to chant them, especially in the beginning and at the end of the session. These mantras might not be spoken by you, but rather to you, played through music played in the background, or depicted on clothing and on temple, ashram and yoga studio walls.
Just as the sign of the Cross corresponds to the Giver of Life, Jesus Christ, signs prevalent throughout yoga correspond to the influence of Shiva, Lord of Death. These signs and patterns include diagrams and amulets supposedly possessing occult powers in astrological and magical forms, and are known as mantras, mandalas, and yantras.
As Orthodox Christians, we should never attend schools grounded in satanic philosophy. We certainly shouldn’t twist our bodies and minds into postures dedicated to satan, even if we don’t worship him. The devil himself appears as an angel of light.
Like moths, we are often attracted to false, created lights. When Christ comes like a gardener, will we recognize Him? There is only one pattern of life, one Uncreated Map for mankind, Who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. He is the Incarnate Logos, the Christ the God-Man.
https://deathtotheworld.com/articles/the-uncreated-map-christ-as-the-light-of-yoga/
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Noted British Author Paul Kingsworth Baptized at Orthodox Monastery in Ireland
The noted British author, thinker, and activist Paul Kingsnorth was united to Christ in holy Baptism at the Romanian Orthodox monastery in Shannonbridge, Ireland, on the feast of Christ’s Baptism on January 6 this year.
“As a Western newcomer to Orthodoxy, I have a lifetime’s learning journey ahead of me, but I already feel like I have arrived home,” he commented on this momentous step.
Kingsnorth, 49, who lives in rural Galway, Ireland, is known for both his fiction books and essays on the environment, as well as the environmental-activist Dark Mountain Project, which he founded in 2009 and directed until 2017. However, he was never a materialist, like many others in the movement, he says. Instead, he has been searching for the deeper Truth for many years.
“I first discovered Christian Orthodoxy four years ago when I walked into a small church in Bucharest. That powerful experience stayed with me, but I could not have known that it would lead me on a journey that would lead to me becoming a member of the Romanian Church,”
Kingsnorth told the Basilica News Agency.
“I felt both joyful and peaceful afterwards … and cold! But a stronger sense that I had arrived somewhere I was meant to be. My reception into the Church has been a great privilege, and the [Romanian] community here in Ireland has been so welcoming to me and my family,” the writer said.
Father Tudor Ghi??, who baptized Kingsnorth, recalls that he impressed upon the famous writer that being a Christian is a never-ending work that should bring spiritual joy, deeper than the initial feelings of enthusiasm upon finding Orthodoxy.
On his own website, Kingsnorth writes that he was on a long spiritual search that led him through Zen Buddhism, Taoism, mythology, Sufism, traditionalism, Wicca, and various other practices. However, something was always missing.
He writes:
Then, in 2020, as the world was turned upside down, so was I. Unexpectedly, and initially against my will, I found myself being pulled determinedly towards Christianity. It’s a long story, which I might tell one day. Suffice it to say that I started the year as an eclectic eco-pagan with a long-held, unformed ache in my heart, and ended it a practicing Christian, the ache gone and replaced by the thing that, all along, I turned out to have been looking for. In January 2021 I was baptised and received into the Eastern Orthodox Church. I don’t know where the path leads from here, but at last I know how to walk it.
Rod Dreher, an Orthodox author and admirer of Kingsnorth, who once recommended him to read Kyriacos Markide’s The Mountain of Silence, writes that,
“Paul is different. He sees the emptiness of our mechanical civilization with much wiser and more searching eyes than Houellebecq, but he also has hope, because even before he was a Christian, Paul believed in the sacred. He sensed the presence of the divine immanent in nature. He only needed to make contact with the Source.”
In September, OrthoChristian reported that Orthodox actor and musician Jonathan Jackson moved to Ireland to help support the newly-established Monastery of the Life-Giving Spring Romanian Orthodox Monastery in Shannonbridge.
INS
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Ksenia Kim, Korea: The Greatest Gift in the World
Orthodox Korean Ksenia Kim Talks About Her Path To The Church
Today we are publishing an English translation of Fr. George Maximov’s interview with Ksenia Kim, an Orthodox Korean missionary. She talks about her difficult personal choice of faith, the history of Orthodoxy among the Korean people as well as the life of Korean Orthodox community in Moscow and their hopes and expectations.
Fr. George Maksimov: Hello. You are watching My Path To God, a program about people who during their journey to Orthodoxy had to give up many things and re-consider their ways. We will talk to our guests about things that motivate them and give them strength.
Today our guest is Ksenia Kim, a descendant of Korean people who settled in the Russian Empire more than 150 years ago and seamlessly integrated into the family of peoples of our country. Even before the revolution of 1917, hieromartyr John (Vostorgov) wrote that every year many Japanese, Chinese and Korean people settle in the Russian Empire. He noted that Koreans are the most open to converting to Orthodoxy. Surprisingly, the initiative to convert often came from the Koreans themselves rather than from the Russian authorities or Orthodox clergy. This was the wish of their souls, although, of course, not all the newcomers had it. The revolution of 1917 was followed by a challenging period and the Russian Koreans, just like other peoples of our country, lived through the period of atheism that was forcefully imposed upon our society. Tell me what was the situation in your family and how did you start moving toward Orthodox faith.
Ksenia Kim: I was born in a regular Korean family. Koreans have a difficult spiritual legacy—It is a mixture of Buddhism and shamanism. I remember that my grandmother followed certain rituals. For example, she used to prepare special food and go outside to feed the fallen spirits to please them or ask for help. So if I followed in the footsteps of my ancestors, I would have probably gone in the same direction. However, God gives the right of choice to every person and after comparison and analysis we can make the best decision. My journey wasn’t easy. I studied Islam and Eastern religions, even joined Protestants for a short while. I understood that the truth was in Orthodoxy. It was the only faith that truly touched my heart and I really felt the presence of God there.
Fr. George: How did you truly discover Orthodoxy? Obviously, you saw churches earlier and maybe even walked into some of them. Yet at some point, you discovered the profundity of Orthodoxy. How did it happen?
Ksenia Kim: When hieromartyr Daniel Sysoyev was murdered in 2009, many people learned about him and started studying the legacy he left behind. My Orthodox acquaintance was one of such people. She gave me the book Instructions For Immortals, or What To Do If You’re Already Dead. I would recommend everybody to read this book. It is fairly short—one can read it in one day—but it totally changes the way you see the world. This is exactly what happened to me. In this book, Father Daniel discusses the Church’s teaching about what happens to people after death. After reading the book, I understood that my prospects were poor. In other words, I was heading straight to hell. But why should I go there, if there is a way to avoid this? I understood that I had to repent. For a long time, several months, I was preparing for confession. It was difficult to remember everything that was done in my lifetime. My first confession took place before Easter. It was a long confession—I entered the church on Holy Saturday at 9 am and left around 4 pm. I still keep in touch with the priest who heard my confession and he still supports me.
Fr. George: If you went to confession, this means that you were already baptized?
Ksenia Kim: Yes, I was indeed baptized in an Orthodox Church when I was 19, but this wasn’t serious for me then. My friend told me that she was going to be baptized and I decided that I’d do this as well, to keep her company. We memorized the Lord’s Prayer and went to the baptism ceremony. There was no mandatory catechesis at that time and I knew nothing about Orthodoxy, so this did not influence my life in any way. My real conversion happened after reading Father Daniel’s book and after my confession I started leading the church-based way of life. Later, I found the address of the Church of Apostle Thomas on Kantemirovskaya street in this book, so I came to this church and became a parishioner. So Father Daniel Sysoyev through his book influenced my life and my enchurchment. The blood of martyrs is indeed the seed of the Church. My conversion was directly influenced by the death that God bestowed upon Father Daniel. During the years of my enchurchment, I met other people who came to God either after the death of Father Daniel or after listening to or reading this works. Nobody really knows the number of such people, but I’m sure that this number is high.
Fr. George: Yes, I also know such people and I think their number will be growing. How did your relatives react to such change of your life priorities? Were they sympathetic, did they follow your choice?
Ksenia Kim: Their first reaction wasn’t very positive, but now my relatives (about thirty of them in Moscow) are fairly tolerant and even sympathetic to a certain extent. That is why I’m hoping that God will gradually grant them the joy of being Orthodox. My sister who lives in Irkutsk has already been baptized. This was quite a story—we had to fight fallen spirits for her, as they didn’t want to let her go. They tempted and scared her so much, that we had to ask the priests for help. A week before her baptism demons started visiting her, she actually saw them, they seized her by the throat, attacked her in other ways, knocked on the door. She couldn’t’ sleep a wink for a week. We were afraid that she would lose her sanity, so I called some priests I knew and they said that my sister should rejoice. I was very surprised to hear that as it seemed that there was nothing to be happy about, but the priest said:
“She should rejoice, for if God allows her to see them, it logically means that the opposite is true too, in other words that means that there are good spirits too and that God exists too”.
The demons try to make people stop believing in their existence and in the existence of supernatural world altogether, and here their actions were so obvious that they couldn’t be ignored.
Fr. George: Did those attacks of evil spirits stop after the baptism?
Ksenia Kim: Pretty much. They continued for some time after that, but soon stopped completely.
Fr. George: It’s important to emphasize this, because it is not only your sister; I also know about other similar cases that happened when adult people realized that they needed to be baptized. Sometimes evil spirits try to stop them. All of a sudden people don’t feel well, some even faint right before the baptism. Evil spirits try to attack or tempt such people. However, after baptism the evil spirits lose their powers and all the attacks stop, just as happened with your sister.
Ksenia Kim: It is interesting to note that I, as a participant in those events, was also affected. Despite thousands of kilometers between us (I was in Moscow, while she was in Irkutsk), when these events occurred over there, my faith was tested too. Once I came home and saw that my place was swarming with large flies, although when I left all doors and windows were closed and everything was fine. This was very strange. Where would those files come from all of a sudden? It took me several days to get rid of them. When later I mentioned this to my Orthodox friend, he said: “Didn’t you realize what that was? Do you remember that one of Satan’s names is Beelzebub? It is translated as “lord of the flies”. So, this means that he visited my home.
Fr. George: The hagiography of one ancient hermit mentions that to distract him from praying, Satan filled the hermit’s cave with a multitude of insects. But he didn’t succeed. The event you described clearly shows that Satan has very little power over Christians. We know that evil spirits would like to destroy the human race, but because God protects Christians, all the evil one could do was this petty trick in hope to confuse the person. God’s blessing protects Orthodox Christians who lead a church life. Of course, Satan would like to harm us more, but Got won’t let him. Whenever God allows any temptations to happen to us, including those that involve direct contact with evil forces, this is never beyond our strength. Only as much as a person can withstand. And God is always nearby; He is always willing to give His help to those who ask. The experience of every believer proves that.
Ksenia Kim: There was another event with my sister. I sent her Orthodox leaflets and books about baptism, confession and communion for distribution in churches before the Epiphany. When she had to go to the airport to pick up these materials, she felt so sick that she nearly died. They managed somehow to find people who picked the materials up. Later she told me: “Can you imagine, as soon as I delivered those materials to churches, everything was back to normal”. The sickness came out of nowhere and was gone inexplicably.
Fr. George: Thank God! I know that it is not only you and your sister, other Koreans also find their path to Orthodoxy. I even know that we have a Korean Orthodox community here in Moscow and that you are an active member. Could you tell us more about it?
Ksenia Kim: Yes, there is a Korean Orthodox community in Zaikonospassky monastery in Moscow. First attempts to establish this community were made in 2001 when we organized catechesis studies for Koreans. Later we also organized some children programs, field trips and pilgrimages. The activities were on and off. Finally, God’s will was to send us a priest, Father Alexander Son, and now the community has a priest of Korean descent who takes care of us.
Fr. George: Does your community cooperate with other public organizations of Russian Koreans?
Ksenia Kim: Yes, of course. We worked with the Korean Youth Club. There is also a newspaper, Rossiyskiye Koreytsy (Russian Koreans), which has a staff employee designated for interacting with the Orthodox Church. We also actively work with the Russian Association of Koreans. With the help of Zaikonospassky monastery and this association, we organized a big conference, Koreans and Orthodoxy, in the spring of 2014. This event was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Koreans’ settlement in Russia. We had a round table with the heads of regional branches of the Association of Koreans where we adopted a resolution on starting a project for development of regional missions in Russia. We wrote an application to His Holiness. Our hierocracy supported the project and active work to establish contact between the missionary departments of dioceses of Russian Orthodox Church and regional branches of Association of Koreans is currently under way. Three pilot projects are already in the works in Southern, Central and Far East federal districts.
Fr. George: Are there places in Russia where the Korean population is larger?
Ksenia Kim: Historically, many Koreans live in the Far East, specifically in Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai. According to statistics, Koreans are the third largest ethnic group there. Naturally, our priority is working in those regions, but we hope that with God’s help we will expand into other cities.
Fr. George: I remember how I felt when I was reading the notes of missionaries and people who lived in Korea more than century ago. They saw that for a long time the Korean people were caught in the middle between China and Japan and were periodically subjected to oppression by their neighbours. Korean people did not benefit from it. I saw that as soon as Korea became an independent country, Korean people made a huge step in their development. It clearly shows that its potential was previously supressed. Korean people were exhausted by their long-time neighbours. At that time the Japanese and Chinese were fighting over the right to rule the Korean people. When the Koreans learned that they had a third neighbour, Russia, they were very happy. That was when the extensive immigration started. It is a known fact that the Korean Queen Min was assassinated because she was leaning toward Russia. King Gojong and royal prince were actually placed under house arrest.
They managed to escape to the Russian consulate and for more than a year the king was ruling the country from there because it was unsafe for him to leave the consulate. Everybody understood what was going on. This, basically, explains the choice the Koreans made about immigration to Russia and why the Koreans, both those who immigrated to Russia and those who stayed in Korea, began converting to Orthodoxy… It was a voluntarily decision of the people. That is why I hope that with God’s help the work that the Korean community is currently doing will be crowned with success. This would be the result of the choice many Koreans made over a hundred years ago, but that process was, one might say, frozen by the period of Soviet atheistic rule. I’d like to ask you your personal opinion: To what extent do contemporary Koreans have a need for Orthodoxy?
Ksenia Kim: Thank you for this historical side note and your question. Our current missionary activities in the region are primarily aimed at counteracting the Protestants who actively preach among the Russian Koreans, presenting Protestantism as the true Korean religion. They misguide our people, saying that it is the Korean religion, while in fact Orthodoxy is our historic legacy and spiritual tradition. When our ancestors received the citizenship of the Russian Empire, they also received baptism. It was a deliberate and voluntary action. That is why it is important to inform the people and do something lest 20 years from now all Russian Koreans are Protestants. I would not like that to happen, but risk of this happening is quite real because the Protestant missionaries are very active. First of all, we need to pray for deliverance of our people from this, dare I say it, sectarian slavery. There are many active sects in the Russian Federation and one of them has three hundred Korean members. Based on that we can estimate the size of those sects.
Fr. George: Of course, people have the right to learn the truth about Orthodoxy. They should know that Orthodoxy is not simply a part of the Russian culture, but that it is the Church founded by Jesus Christ Our Lord himself. That way rather than making their choice based on some unverified information, they can do so knowing where the truth is and where the true Church of Christ is. Naturally, this requires a lot of effort.
Ksenia Kim: Yes, the desire to find the truth is also needed. It is amazing, that despite the small number of Orthodox Koreans, God leads us to himself. Even more amazing is that people in South Korea, where the majority profess Protestantism, are also converting to Orthodoxy. We hope that God would give us a chance to build the church, because even now when we try to oppose Protestants in Moscow, we unfortunately can’t offer an alternative to people who are used to active community life. All Orthodox Koreans go to various churches and only gather in Zaikonospassky monastery for some joint events or studies. I think that for the purposes of missionary work it would be great to have a church that Koreans could visit for quiet prayer. So that there is no misunderstanding among the parishioners. If a hundred Koreans come to one church, this would probably give the Russian old ladies quite a scare (laughs).
Fr. George: By the way, how did the parishioners of Zaikonospassky monastery receive your community?
Ksenia Kim: They got used to us gradually. However we don’t go there in hundreds, usually there are about twenty of us there during the service. It’s not a large percentage of the total number of parishioners. They know that there is Father Alexander who takes care of us, so they are friendly toward us.
Fr. George: I also wanted to ask you if you had any contacts with people from Korea who temporarily or permanently reside in Moscow. Do you have a rapport with them? I once talked to an Orthodox Korean who grew up in the Far East, then moved to South Korea for some time and later came back to Russia. He told me that living in his historical homeland was difficult for him. Everything was strange and unclear. He even had some kind of culture shock. We have very few people from North Korea here, but what is your relationship with people of South Korean descent? If you had any experience, what was your impression?
Ksenia Kim: Yes, I’ve met South Koreans. As a rule, most of them are leaning toward Protestantism. Very few are Orthodox. In general, they adapt here without problems and get on well with the locals. Mostly they are businessmen from South Korea and students. We had an idea to organize Russian language lessons for these Koreans from Korea. The newly passed law requires foreign citizens intending to live in the Russian Federation to speak Russian, know Russian history and culture, and pass a special test. We would like to help people with this. And of course we wouldn’t be helping South Koreans only. For example, we recently received a letter from a priest from Siberia who baptized a North Korean. This North Korean didn’t even speak Russian, so I can’t imagine how this miracle could happen…That man was sick, and as he was in a grave condition, he stayed at a hospice. The priest asked us to send him Orthodox prayers in Korean as soon as possible. So we had to find Korean translations of Lord’s Prayer, “Theotokos and Virgin rejoice…” and Creed.
Fr. George: What else does the Moscow Korean Orthodox community do?
Ksenia Kim: With the help of Zaikonospassky monastery, our community holds theological courses for adult Koreans. The course subjects include liturgics, Church Slavonic language, catechesis, and Gospel according to the Holy Fathers. For missionary purposes, we also organized free Korean language courses in Zaikonospassky monastery. In addition, our community organizes various field trips, pilgrimages and meetings. We are also planning to cooperate with the Korean Youth Committee in social networks and websites.
Fr. George: This is a very valuable experience. I saw similar initiatives from Orthodox people of various ethnic backgrounds, for example Orthodox Kurds or Kazakhs that live in Moscow. They also wanted to get together in a single group in some parish, but unfortunately these attempts did not come to fruition even though it was a grassroots initiative that came directly from the people. Moscow Koreans, thank God, succeeded, so I think that the example of your Korean community could be useful not only for Koreans, but for other ethnic groups as well.
Ksenia Kim: God indeed is very benevolent toward us; we can feel it because we get a lot of help from everywhere. A lot of God’s grace too. Unlike Russians who have numerous saints and many people praying for them, it is very difficult for us. Every third Russian has people who served God somehow, maybe even saints, among his or her relatives. Russian people get tremendous spiritual support from this multitude of people who pray for them. We don’t have that. In many cases, we are descendants of atheists, pagans and shamans. Our people only now are gradually becoming Orthodox, and that is why God bestows us with His special grace. How Russian monks are rejoicing looking at us is particularly amazing. This is great. They are sincerely, almost child-like, happy to see that we, non-Russians, Koreans, are in fact Orthodox. It is very important to know that God is with us, that He doesn’t abandon us and gives us His support. This, of course, gives us a strong motivation to do more. We have many plans and a great desire to promote spiritual education of children, do social activities, work with youth, and many other things. We hope that God will help us and ask you to pray for the salvation of the Korean people. You know, God doesn’t differentiate between nationalities or ranks.
Fr. George: Of course, the truth is for everyone. I believe that God arranges the life of every person. It is not an accident that you and other Koreans are in Russia and that you were raised in a culture with Christian roots. This is God’s loving gift to you. I have another question for you: Can you tell us any stories about conversion of other members of Korean community? How does God lead them to Orthodoxy?
Ksenia Kim: Sure. There is a story of one woman that I remember particularly well. I won’t mention her name. She had a terrible experience—her child fell out of the window of a multi-storied building. This Korean woman was not a very religious person, but she knew about Orthodoxy and Mary the Mother of God. By some miracle, when she saw the open window and realized what happened, she threw herself down on her knees and cried:
“Mother of God, please have mercy on my son!”
When that woman came down, she saw that amazingly her child was safe and sound and didn’t even have a scratch. They called the ambulance, of course. It turned out that the child only had a broken ankle. His spine, head, arms and legs were not harmed. This made such a great impression on her husband and herself that they went to church and started living a church-based life. God moves in mysterious ways. Some people take a long journey seeking the truth, while others are converted through such incredible events.
Personally, I am eternally grateful to God for arranging things so that I was born in Russia, an Orthodox country, and making me an Orthodox Christian. I think this is the greatest gift in the world. I am even more grateful for it than I am grateful for my life. I can honestly tell you, that when I attend a service, my eyes are filled with tears, the tears of gratefulness for allowing me to be a part of this great spiritual legacy of humankind. And I am very sad when I see Russian people, people who have everything—a great number of saints and pious ancestors who pray for them—and yet these people do not participate in the Church life, do not receive Communion and do not go to church. I feel pain and sadness for such people. God led us, non-Russians, to this greatest legacy, this Noah’s Ark, this huge ship, while some people reject all this on their own accord.
Fr. George: I read hieromartyr Grigori’s (Lebedev) explanation of Jesus’s words A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. (Mark, 6:4). He said that this applies not only to Jesus Christ or a saint, but to Christianity in general. It is without honour in the community that has Christian roots and maybe even exists because in the past ancestors of these people became Christian. There is also a negative effect, when people from Orthodox ethnic backgrounds, not only Russians, are satisfied by a very superficial knowledge of Orthodoxy—they pick up holy water, bless an Easter cake, light a candle—and that is it. Even though that is all they know about Christianity, they have a false impression that since Christianity is ours anyway, it is not very interesting. When such a person starts his or her spiritual quest, he or she thinks:
“Well, Christianity is just Easter cakes and candles. This is not interesting. Spiritual things must be somewhere far way, it can’t be nearby”.
So sometimes Russian people have to make a very long journey and wander the darkest corners of the world only to discover with amazement that the Truth they were searching for is where they least expected it to be. Thank you for reminding us about this and for your story. I wish you God’s help in your spiritual journey and the activities of your community.
Ksenia Kim: Thank you.
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