About my Conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy

I was born about 25 years ago in Columbus, Ohio. My father was raised Latin Catholic; my mother was raised LCMS (Lutheran), but when she married my father she agreed to becoming Catholic. My earliest memories of religion are vague and indistinct. Since my earliest youth, I have had a wooden crucifix and a children's Bible. I never paid much attention to either of these until the late teenage years. Crucifixes were to be found in several rooms of the house, however, and during much of the year I remember seeing dried palm branches stuck behind the crucifix in the hallway and wondering what it all meant.

My formal introduction to Christianity was, as you may already guess, through Catholicism. My parents regularly took me and my sister to a [Novus Ordo] Roman Catholic church from my earliest childhood to the point in my teenage years when the family relations changed somewhat. Although I did not care for the service, I remember feeling awed at the first church we attended, St. Joseph. The beautiful stained glass windows impressed me, and I also thought the place felt very comfortable. Then, when I was probably 5, the parish grew too large and had to split; my parents were chosen to be part of the new church to be founded. The next church we attended was not a church in the sense of building but of community. We met in an old firehall, in a section veiled off from the firetrucks behind. Eventually, the several families of this new community accumulated enough funds to begin construction of a new church: St. Katherine Drexel. It was at St. Katherine Drexel church that I received all my CCD instruction, conducted primarily several weeks during each summer, and where I received basic knowledge on the sacraments.

At this point in my life, in the pre-teens, I was not particularly religious. I hated attending church, much rather choosing to sleep in on Sundays or wake up early to watch Ren and Stimpy. My first real conscious draw towards Christianity occurred around the time when I was preparing for confirmation. To that time, I believed in God, but I also remember entertaining thoughts of pantheism and atheism. To be honest, I did not think much about God, and the only time I really remember praying is when members of my family, or a friend, would die. And even then, I prayed more to a generic God. When in sixth grade, I volunteered with one other student to present the Catholic faith to the rest of the class; but this was not on my own initiative and only because no other persons in the class were willing to present the Catholic faith.

But, in all truthfulness, I saw Jesus as simply a good man (like Moses) and did not then realize He is God. In about the 8th grade I began preparation for the rite of confirmation. One requirement was to write a letter to the priest stating your intent. The letter I wrote was of an honest intent to grow in Christian maturity, and it was about here that I only started to become more involved in my faith.

From the 8th grade to the 11th grade or so, I honestly cannot remember my exact religious convictions, if I even had any. I stopped attending Mass altogether for perhaps a year, maybe two. Difficulties in high school, for at least the first several years, aroused me to a state of silent indignation and frustration, and I dwelt more on these inner feelings than any religious sentiments. But by the 12th grade, my religious views became more attuned. I never brought the Bible or religious books to school, but I increasingly brought them to my workplace after school, where I fervently read them during breaks. How did I become interested in these religious works? It really was a strange change of events. Throughout high school I demonstrated an infatuation for history, particularly ancient history. By 12th grade, I had read Herodotus, Thucydides and several books on the Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, etc. In my reading of ancient history, I remembered that the Hebrew scriptures themselves were ancient histories, and so, guided by my fascination in ancient history, I picked up an NIV Bible that had been given to my father by a Catholic priest (don't ask) and started reading the historical books starting with 1 Samuel. The words I read were powerful, even more powerful than Herodotus. I kept on reading. I received my own Bible (Protestant version) and started reading from Genesis. Within the year, I had completed reading about 75% of the Old Testament (excluding apocryphal works).

I continued my Bible reading into my first year of college, which I spent at a local college. I found my first year course load surprisingly easy, and during the hours in between classes, I started reading the New Testament writings, beginning with the four gospels. While many of the gospel stories were not new to me (I heard them in the Mass during my childhood) reading the stories together in context and in relation to the whole account of Jesus thrilled me. Something inside me moved me to a greater interest in anything having to do with early Christianity. I discovered the Apostolic Fathers, and I read them alongside the canonical writings. As I became more interested in the Christian faith as represented by the early Christian writings, I concluded that I needed to once again worship as a Christian. As I was raised Catholic, the Mass was the obvious place to return.

Perhaps the most formative years were my last 2.5 years as an undergraduate school at Elizabethtown College. Even before attending, I desired to become a part of the Catholic community on campus. I joined Newman Club, assisted at the Sunday campus Masses, and in between my studies continued reading books on the Catholic faith. Yet, something else transitioned in my life: I became extremely depressed and lonely on campus. Although a member of the Catholic community, I felt as though there were no Catholic person on campus with whom I could faithfully discuss Roman Catholic beliefs. I did, however, become good friends with a Nathan M., who, as a fundamentalist Christian, had an interesting contribution to my faith development. Up to this point in my life, I had a few acquaintances who were Christian, but until then I had no friend who read the Bible with such great frequency and devotion. In the end, we tended to stop discussing religion, since Nathan and I could not agree on the key differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. In retrospect, I probably goaded him, since many of the books I read that shaped my discussions with him were of the Catholic apologetics genre.

I wrote journals on frequent basis during these 2.5. years, and many of my religious questions and struggles are addressed there. I cannot undervalue the influence of my depression on my religious pursuit. When the depression was powerful, I walked (or ran) miles away from campus to secluded places, praying along the way and when I arrived. Several of my school papers focused on Catholic themes, and my library of Catholic books swelled. I also spent countless hours on the internet, posting on Christian and Catholic Christian forums.

Near the end of my time at Elizabethtown, I realized that the depression was not lifting but worsening. I also began to have increasingly difficult back problems that prevented me from running as well and frequently as the first two years. God seemed to ignore all my novenas, all my prayers for mercy. I did not despair, but I definitely grew weary. About this time, as I was developing in my understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, I became informed of the traditional Catholic movement (the TLM and so forth) and the Eastern Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) Churches. All my life, I had only attended Novus Ordo Masses on a regular basis. I had, on a few occasions attended a Lutheran church, and once or twice a Presbyterian service, but the details of these services had negligible impact on me. I read Timothy Ware's (Bishop Kallisto's) The Orthodox Church in my senior year of college, and I was intrigued by the East. By my senior year, I was unsatisfied by what was going on in the mainstream Catholic church, and I tended to side with many of the traditional Catholic arguments, especially as they appertained to the liturgy. I did not stop attending the Novus Ordo liturgy, but I wished that the mainstream Church were more conservative in her liturgy, and truer to the early Church and the Church Fathers I had read so far (I bought the 10 volume Ante-Nicene Fathers for myself for Christmas, and I found the tone of the early Christians to be different from that of the official voices of Roman Catholicism).

Next: my experience with the charismatic Catholics. I do not recall when or where I first heard of this group. I believe it was the internet. By my last year of college, I was still extremely depressed, ill, and feeling that God was very far away. I felt that the Novus Ordo Mass was not providing me with the spiritual support I needed. Yet, I found some comfort, if limited, in my private prayers to the saints via novenas. I especially prayed to St. Terese (The Little Flower), St. Jude Thadeus and St. Dymphna. I also held out for miraculous healing from a modern day healer, be it Protestant or Catholic (about this time, at least when at home on breaks, I watched the 700 Club in the hope that God would heal me through the prayers of Pat Robertson!)

But, in any case, I fell in with the charismatic Catholics. They did not seek me; I sought them. During a college break, I saw a small ad in St. Katherine Drexel's bulletin for a healing Mass. I attended. I was prayed over, and I did not feel healed. The charismatic Catholics prayed tongues as they laid their hands on me as well, which somewhat freaked me out, and I never became used to it. But I started attending the weekly meetings of the charismatic Catholic group. I must say from the start that they were committed to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. They did not advocate anything against the magisterium, and they exuded a great love for Mary, Jesus and the saints. I found their music, at least then, to be uplifting and a fine alternative to the "Robot Mass" music to which I was accustomed. But the speaking in tongues and the seemingly Pentecostal (Protestant) connections always were a barrier for me. I decided to enter a Life in the Spirit seminar, and I attended all the meetings. I enjoyed listening to the speakers. But what was I really there for? I wanted the depression to end. I wanted to experience the love of God, to know that He cared for me--by feeling it. I thought that by baptism in the Holy Spirit I might be changed anew, and my life change for the better.

On the day of my baptism in the Spirit, I was extremely unsure. I wanted to feel better, and I thought maybe God might be using this ritual to fill me with the Holy Ghost which would heal and cleanse me of all impurity. But I also felt that it was not right, that I was not acting in complete accord with my conscience. Throughout the whole ritual, even as the charismatics laid their hands on me praying for me to receive a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit, I repeatedly prayed, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." I did not experience anything, although the woman in front of me who had just been prayed over was weeping. I never returned to the group, although to this day I hold no grudge against any member. Each was kind and very caring towards me. It was the theology that I could not accept.

[continued in Part II of next post]