What's Your Past And Present?

[Clifton]

A(n excruciatingly) fuller account of my journey from non-denominational evangelical Stone-Campbell/Restoration Movement background to Anglicanism (ECUSA) to inquiry into Orthodoxy can be found here:

http://www.geocities.com/chealy5/PEIntroduction.htm

Here's the gist.

I ran into some contradictions in my heritage church beliefs. How could we have a sacramental understanding of baptism but a Zwinglian understanding of the Lord's Supper? How could we be a unity and reform movement but essentially ignore some 1700 years of Church history?

I then discovered liturgy and the daily office. Being Romophobic (okay, a bit of an exagerration ), and being a huge admirer of T. S. Eliot (and C. S. Lewis), it was perhaps natural that I look into Anglicanism. Doing so opened me up a bit to Rome, but I never could get over papal infallibility and the immaculate conception. I was confirmed in ECUSA in April 1996.

After a little more than three years, I began to see that my Anglo-Catholic parish and diocese were islands in a troubled sea, and not the reality of what ECUSA was. Going to seminary, to discern a vocation to the Anglican priesthood, only confirmed that . . . in spades!

After only one term/semester (I started mid-year) at seminary I almost didn't go back. But I didn't want to appear a failure, I didn't want to uproot my family again, and I sincerely thought I could be a change agent.

After that term, it was summer, and through several serendipitous occurrences, I started investigating Orthodoxy. I have been doing so now for the last three years, with increasing seriousness and devotion. LIke anastasios, I have a spouse who right now appears to want nothing to do with Orthodoxy, so it is at times challenging. (But things have gotten better in the last few months, and it's possible she is reaching a new state of openness.)

I'm wrestling right now, with a new baby (our first) soon to arrive (7 Aug.--or whenever the baby wants). I want to become a catechumen. But with 1 Peter 3:7, I'm trying not to rock my wife's world any more than it currently is.

Pray for me, a sinner.

[user_142]

Born into a staunchly Irish Catholic (old school) Family.
Baptised at 40 Days of age.

CCD, First Communion and Confirmation as usual.

Got disgusted with modernist parish forced to attend as a child.
Discovered Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics at age 12.
Parrents didn't want me to be involved. I did it anyway.

Began slowly to see falsity of many Roman Doctrines.
Checked out orthodox Lutheranism for awhile.

Received by Chrismation into the Serbian Church.

Moved to San Francisco at age 30. Joined Russian Church Abroad (If you can't beat them, join them :mrgreen: ).

Very Happy Ever Since.

[尼古拉前执事]

Welcome to the forum Brigid's Boy! Thank you for sharing your story and I hope you will enjoy reading and posting here.

[Justin Kissel]

Joined Russian Church Abroad (If you can't beat them, join them

Lol

[尼古拉前执事]

True. Also a friend of mine who knows the TOC well said that they have agreements of communion with the Serbian Orthodox Church and Jerusalem Patriarchate.

I have since found out and Euphrosynos Café poster and priest of the Jerusalem Patriarchate confirmed that what I had been told above was false. Just wanted to clarify in case anyone starts reading this thread again.

[尼古拉前执事]

You also mention some 'Old Calendar' Greek jurisdictions that are out of communion with canonical Orthodoxy. Do not the canons of the church matter?

If the canons of the Church do matter, it is not the Old Calendarist Greeks that I would look to as being 'in trouble' but rather 'world orthodoxy'!

[Justin2]

I was born in 1978 to no religion whatsoever. I didn't even really become aware of church until I was around seven or eight, because a friend of mine was a Mormon. So I started going to his church with him and his family. I was living with my Grandparents at the time, who weren't particularly religious, so they didn't go. I ended up getting baptized, while really not knowing much about the church I was going to. Eventually, I stopped coming, and didn't look into religion again until I was around 12, when my Mom would send my brothers and I to a Baptist church (on a bus) where I didn't pay attention because I was just glad to get out of the house (things were...rough).
I spent most of my adolescence very involved in reading philosphy, history, and politics. I also gravitated towards the extreme, and spent a good deal of my time in the local hardcore punk scene. From about 14 to 25 I was a complete, unbending atheist. I couldn't accept chaos and the big bang as dogma anymore, and I started searching. At first, I read a lot about Catholicism, because I wanted to dig deep. I knew that protestantism was flawed, and I was determined to find a less co-opted theology.
I think I looked into Orthodoxy because I was teaching myself Russian, and the cupolas looked neat, so I asked myself what kind of churches they were sitting on top of, and then read about the history of The Church, and one thing lead to another, etc. My girlfriend and I started going to Liturgy every Sunday, and later we were baptized, and then married the day after.
Now I'm in the Army, struggling quite often with balancing being a soldier and being a good Orthodox Christian. It's definitely a hard road to walk, but God has put me on it, so I'll just have to finish the course. My first baby is due in September, and I'm very greatful for that. I think that going through basic training re-ignited some passions that I had worked very hard to get rid of, and sometimes, in this line of work, it's hard to keep them all down. My hope is that I can finish my service, move home, get a house near our old church and teach or work as a translator. Quite literally, God only knows!