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Eastern Christians would hear nothing of it. ", Icons are not merely sacred art. In Orthodoxy one encounters the eternal, unchangeable God. But the impulse is to exaggerate the differences when you fear being hugged to death. The first four enjoy special honor due to their antiquity. To the extent, however, one could intellectualize the reasons for converting, he or she would probably summarize them along these lines: In our ever-changing world, in the constant re-design of services and re-evaluation of beliefs, Orthodoxy stands as a mountain of granite, unshakable by fads and movements and political correctness. Orthodoxy, advocates suggest, reveals and corrects evangelical reductionism and superficiality. Step Two: Repentance There is no salvation without repentance. Differences over clerical beards, the tonsure, and fasting also exacerbated the growing deterioration of East-West unity. Karmiris writes, "Scripture and Tradition are equally valid, possess equal dogmatic authority, and are equal in value as sources of dogmatic truth . The Mission of The Orthodox Church in America, the local autocephalous Orthodox Christian Church, is to be faithful in fulfilling the commandment of Christ to Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Much like a divorce where numerous and complex problems fester for years and then coalesce around a single event, the defining moment for a distinctly Orthodox identity came with the Great Schism of 1054. Small bodies of Orthodox believers exist in other places as "autonomous" but not "autocephalous" churches (Finland, Japan, former Czechoslovakia, etc.). Vladimir I, a great prince of Kiev, reigned from 980 till 1015 and succeeded in the mass conversion of the Eastern Slavs.1 Throughout his reign Vladimir's agenda had . Orthodoxy attracts seekers with her other-worldliness, with her holiness, with her worship, with her services and sacraments, with the form and content of her religious expression, with her iconography, with her chanting, with her mysticism, with her monasticism, with her life between heaven and earth. One feels that the Church is not just a worldly organization, but a divine-human organism. And yet, not all of these journeys have worked out. Further, Protestants have long enjoyed rich liturgical traditions of their own (see, for example, Bard Thompson's classic Liturgies of the Western Church). I can't be the only one who's observed a friend converting to Orthodox Christianity and noticed them instantly, literally overnight, losing their sense of . At the beginning, I thought I knew what I was getting into. But one insightful reader asked a penetrating question: "Your book does a fine job comparing the two traditions; why have you not converted to Orthodoxy?" The reason Orthodoxy is stable is because she is grounded in the truth. He has no good option for dealing with that affection, so he's either sullen or angry. One can find Orthodox statements that ascribe a unique authority to Scripture over tradition, but these are few and far between, and they speak of tradition in a narrower than usual sense. As with liturgy, conversion to Orthodoxy is hardly a prerequisite for a renewed engagement with apostolic tradition. Without waiting for a response, Humbert exited the church and declared, "Let God look and judge." I do not wish to antagonize anyone and if there is a place online where I might go to better have my questions answered, please. The Orthodox Church has existed since the day of Pentecost and when we truly believe and become truly attached, not merely by baptism or chrismation, not merely by our presence but by our actions and our inner convictions, then and only then do we truly become connected to the Church, to Jesus Christ the Saviour and therefore to the Trinitarian God, the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. Now, the question stands: If one is convinced that Orthodox Christianity possess the fullness of truth and is God . Why would a Protestant Christian convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity? Join our newsletter to get the most interesting articles on spiritual issues and learn about the recent news from St. Elisabeth Convent. It is not always easy to advance strong arguments for these conversions. When you are the only Norse guy and most of your lands are Slovianskian, it makes more sense to convert yourself than to convert them. Thatwould be interesting. For example, if a person goes through a great deal of hardship, sacrifice, and turmoil in order to join the Churchas in the case of former clergy in a different communion, or when ones family does not approvethey might feel that the Church owes them for converting. (2 Pet. For any convert, it's a spiritual, intense, and private process,. They conceded a special honor to the Western papacy but insisted that the bishop of Rome was only the first among equals. The Orthodox Church is the ancient Church that Christ and the Apostles established. Is it wrong for Western missionaries to seek to convert the Orthodox in lands like Russia, Romania, or Greece? There are no doubt some ways that he is the same person he will always be, and there are ways Orthodoxy and every other church has significant points in common, not least that we love the same Lord. This is the ultimate reason an ultra-Orthodox Jew would turn to Jesus. During my four years as a visiting professor at Moscow State University (1991-95) I often felt schizophrenic. Liturgically, the Orthodox ethos of a formal worship setting will attract some Christians, but to many other vibrant movements within evangelicalism it will have little if any appeal. The pairing of both secular groups with the Orthodox in a religious freedom case is rare they have frequently been on opposite sides on church-state separation issues such as same-sex marriage . Its not something you can figure out by studying the Church Fathers. Because everyone has their own presuppositions in which they interpret reality and thus no surprise you'll find people based on these presuppositions won't accept Christianity. Maybe you have to soak in it for years, till the evidence becomes overwhelming. Before trying to discern how evangelicals should respond to these many issues involving Eastern Orthodoxy, a brief history is in order. Twitter | Orthodoxy provides a full-bodied, full-souled spiritual life that assumes that everything you do as a Christian makes you either more like God or less like Him, and because becoming like God is what salvation consists of, that means that everything you do is critical. I felt like Marco Polo. The move was far more than geographic. Together they gathered an army with the intent to regain control of Rus' and establish Vladimir as the ruler. Instead, an adolescent has to figure out and establish his adult persona in the face of affection. So why should someone desire to join the Orthodox Church? Despite its historical estrangement from Rome, from a Protestant theological perspective Orthodoxy is similar to Catholicism at several points. This is not just an explanation but an apology, and even an appreciation for the perseverance of friendship in the face of truly annoying behavior. Recently I worshiped at an Orthodox church in Palo Alto on this celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. For example, I know someone that spent over a year studying almost every aspect of Orthodoxy, including many fathers of the Church and practically every nuance of both doctrine and history. Yeah, I think Ive gotten it out of my system. Thats surely a factor, but I think theres something else going on, more specific to Orthodox converts. As historians mostly suppose, Vladimir's turn to Orthodox Christianity was more about the improvement of Russians' connections with Christian states than about sentiments: for Rus, Byzantium. While evangelicals might be eager to argue there is no biblical warrant for icons, for the Orthodox it is enough that icons have always been a part of church tradition. While this exclusivism is not unique to Orthodoxy, with this self-understanding it is easy to see why the Orthodox Church in countries such as Russia is extremely unhappy about Western, Protestant missionary incursions. Oden, for example, who delights in referring to his theological method as "paleo-orthodox," is now working on a comprehensive patristic commentary on the whole Bible to be published by InterVarsity Press. In some places in the world, Orthodoxy is the primary Christian game in town (as in Russia and Serbia), and it is inextricably wedded to the local ethnic culture. Yet, at times there are questions of conscience and matters of principle. Yeah, I think Ive gotten it out of my system. But only lately has it dawned on me that I must have strained friendships over the years due to my vocal enthusiasm for my adopted church. A second theory is that converts of any sort have a tendency to exuberance that is wearying to outsiders. First, Christianity had no doctrine to support the Islamic hypothesis about Jesus' modification into a semi-god. There are two sides to this coin, as well: Some people become Orthodox for all the wrong reasons, while some dont become Orthodox for all the wrong reasons. The Orthodox Church in America, with roots in Moscow and about 85,000 adherents . (Of course, for every person insisting that there were no differences, there was another person asking me to explain the differences. It is why I think a number of people have a list of groups they have been in here. We are not seeking to reform or to teach the Church how it should do things, but are rather seeking to be formed by the Church and to learn how we should be doing things as faithful Christians. It took me a few years to sense that there was a whole other something going on. Indeed, in a letter of 865, Pope Nicholas made it clear that he intended to extend the power of the papacy "over all the earth, that is, over every church." One of the problems the Orthodox Church currently suffers in this country is a lack of converts. The East allowed some priests to marry, while the West required celibacy. One is attracted to Orthodoxy in the same way one falls in love. According to The Saga of Erik the Red, there were Christians among the people whom Erik the Red brought to Greenland to settle it in the late tenth century. And such a journey can only be spoken of from experience. She stands firm on her dogmatic and moral teachings. There is a distinct set of conservative converts to Eastern Orthodoxy, which depending on your perspective either left, or was left by, Roman Catholicism in the Great Schism of 1054. It had ramifications for the ecclesiastical status of both cities and further exacerbated the strained relations between the two regions. Buddhists are called to meditate. While Protestant evangelicals have never agreed on the precise meaning or mode of the sacraments, they have historically emphasized two related truths that diverge from the Orthodox understanding of the sacraments. But why is our kind so characteristically obnoxious? He states that in Gaul, before setting out towards Rome, Constantine and his army saw a great cross in the sky. Later ecumenical councils at Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451) acknowledged Constantinople as the "New Rome" and accorded it "equal privileges" and "equal rank in ecclesiastical matters" with Latin Rome. During my project I gained. Poland, 1 million Our digital archives are a work in progress. The basic framework of services like the Divine Liturgy or Vespers doesnt change much, but every day of the liturgical year provides prayers for saints and feasts that can be added to that framework. Legislation pending in Russia, for example, could, if implemented, curtail Western missionary enterprises. Can we attempt to put into words why a host of people have converted and continue to convert to the Orthodox faith? At the beginning, I thought I knew what I was getting into. Maybe you have to soak in it for years, till the evidence becomes overwhelming. In the words of contemporary Orthodox theologian Thomas Hopko, "everything in the church flows out of the waters of baptism: the remission of sins and life eternal." Perhaps this unanticipated experience of encountering something unknown and marvelously organic accounts for the distinctive lapel-grabbing impulse among converts to Orthodoxy. Similar differences and disputes existed within early Christianity, but disputes within Christianity extended also to the place of Mosaic Law or Old Covenant in general in Christianity.