Journey to Orthodoxy, part 4

Between 1987 and 2002, there were a few changes that took place in my life:

- Terrie and I got married;

-we became actively involved in the parish, and I became a cantor;

- we had four children;

- we moved to Newark (Ohio), then to Cincinnati, and finally to Mason (Ohio).

Despite the difficulties involved in being Byzantine Catholic, we were true to our faith. The difficulties were, in many ways, unavoidable:

(1) The rest of the family, on both sides, was and is Latin-Rite Catholic. This made our wedding at St. John Chrysostom interesting, to say the least. Of course we knew what to expect, and courtesy of the rehearsal so did the people in the wedding party (well, sort of at least), but everyone else was in for a ride. The ceremony itself, being the marriage ceremony embedded in a Divine Liturgy, takes about 1 hour 45 minutes. Couple that with the fact that we had an icon blessed during the ceremony and the whole thing took close to two hours. To be clear, this is two hours of completely unfamiliar territory for everyone else in the church; they weren’t familiar with the Divine Liturgy itself, let alone the extra parts that are included in the wedding ceremony. For starters, the couple walk into the church together in the Byzantine Rite ceremony. The father giving the bride away is left over from the days of dowries, and since the Eastern Churches never knew this practice, the tradition of giving the bride away has never existed. If Terrie’s dad was saddened about not being able to “give away” the youngest of his 11 children (and I’d imagine he was), he never said a word. Then there is the crowning, which is the climax of the wedding service. The crowns are signs of the glory and honor with which God crowns the couple during the Mystery. The bride and groom are crowned as the king and queen of their home, of their domestic church, which they will rule with fear of God, wisdom, justice and integrity. There is no parallel to this in the Latin Rite.

(2) All of our children were baptized, chrismated (confirmed), and received the Eucharist for the first time at St. John Chrysostom. These were also completely different experiences for our Latin-Rite relatives. First and foremost, all three of the sacraments are administered by the priest on the same day when the child is an infant (as opposed to baptism for infants, “First Communion” around age 7 and confirmation around age 14 administered by the bishop). Baptism is by triple-immersion in a font large enough to accommodate this. The Eucharist is both the Body and Blood together in one chalice and is distributed to the faithful by means of a spoon which the priest uses to place the Eucharist in the mouth of the communicant, and the “bread” used is leavened. Those of you who are Latin-Rite Catholic are probably asking, “This is Catholic?” Yep, it is. I won’t get into all of the theological details here that explain the differences (first because I don’t have all the answers and second because that in and of itself could fill at least one large book), but if you’re interested please ask and I’ll do my best.

(3) There is not a Byzantine Catholic church in Newark, Ohio, nor is there one in Cincinnati. When we lived in Newark, we drove back to St. John Chrysostom in Columbus (about a 35-minute drive one way), and after moving to Southwest Ohio we drove to St. Barbara, a mission parish in Dayton, Ohio (a 55-minute drive one way from Cincinnati and a 35-minute drive one way from Mason). No, it wasn’t easy, especially with the kids. But it was worth it.

That is, it was worth it until a new priest was assigned to St. Barbara’s. The priest in Columbus had often joked that a lot of people, including a lot of priests, told him he was “too Orthodox”. The first priest in Dayton was a priest that had visited St. John Chrysostom several times before we moved to Cincinnati, so in going to St. Barbara we were dealing with a “known entity”…one who got along with the priest at St. John Chrysostom and one who made the same joke about being “too Orthodox”. (As an aside, the priest at St. Barbara has since converted and is an Orthodox priest. I guess he finally got tired of the joke and decided to make it the truth instead.) We really didn’t appreciate the fact that these two priests were so Orthodox until we had to deal with one that wasn’t. Granted, when we went on vacation to Lake Erie and went to a Byzantine-Rite church there, it was decidedly “less Orthodox”, meaning that some of the prayers were shortened or skipped and that other shortcuts were taken to make the Liturgy about an hour long instead of the usual 90 minutes, so we knew we had been blessed at our home parishes. But when the new priest arrived at St. Barbara, more than just the length of the Liturgy changed. There was a change in the atmosphere. It’s sort of one of those intangible things that you can’t really describe, but along with the changes in the Liturgy, the life of the parish changed. The homilies were no longer focused on the Scriptures, theology, and daily living. I lost count on how many times the new priest mentioned Vietnam in his sermons (keep in mind, this around the year 2000 we’re talking about here).

Finally, during Liturgy one Saturday afternoon, I reached the end. During a homily in which the priest stated that soldiers were the same as abortionists, I walked out. I was the cantor…the only cantor…and I walked out, never to return. Having had many discussions about the priest with Terrie, she knew that things had been building for a while, and was aware that when I had said, “Someday, I may just walk out,” that I meant it.

So there we were, with no place to call home. It took a while for things to settle down to the point that we could look rationally at the situation. When we finally did, we quickly realized that there were only two viable options:

(1) return to the Latin Rite;

(2) look at Orthodoxy

Neither met with Terrie’s approval. The Latin Rite was still as empty as it ever was; we knew this from visiting our relatives and going to their churches over the years. If anything, it had gotten worse, and resembled Protestantism more than ever. The bad experience at the Greek Orthodox Church back in the late 80’s still lingered in Terrie’s mind. For me, there was only one option: look at Orthodoxy. Knowing from experience that reading about it was not enough, I knew that I needed to visit another Orthodox church, or possibly several, and get a feel for it. I knew I needed to talk to the priests and start finding out first-hand about it. With Terrie’s permission, I began the next stage of “the journey” alone. I hadn’t been to church by myself in a very long time, realistically since my freshman year at Ohio State. Unsettled doesn’t even really begin to describe how I felt. I didn’t know if Orthodoxy was the answer, but I knew that just not going to church was not the answer. So, in 2002, I went, alone, to Christ the Savior/Holy Spirit Orthodox Church for the first time.

Journey to Orthodoxy, part 3

Welcome to Byzantium

Growing up, I never knew that Byzantine Catholicism existed, let alone that there was a Byzantine Catholic church in Columbus. Most Latin-Rite Catholics are completely unaware that there are seven different Catholic rites; in fact, most don't even realize that they are Latin-Rite Catholics.

The obvious question: what is a "rite"? Essentially, a rite is a set of traditions that spell out how the sacraments and services are to be celebrated. Historically, as the Church spread throughout the Roman Empire, different communities and cultures developed different ways of celebrating the sacraments. Currently, seven of these rites have survived, one of which is the Byzantine Rite. The rite that pretty much everyone thinks of when the word "Catholic" is used is the Latin Rite.

So, picking up the story from the previous post...

Courtesy of an assignment she received in home-ec, Terrie and I were off to St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Just walking into the church, I couldn't help but realize two things: (1) this was not like any other Catholic church I'd ever been in; and (2) God lives here. Passing through the doorway, the first thing you notice is the large "wall" that separates the people from the altar area. The wall is properly called an iconostasis and is covered with icons...sacred paintings, done in a very Byzantine, two-dimensional style, of Christ, Mary, other saints, angels, and events from the life of Christ. Also, by the time we arrived (5 minutes before liturgy), the smell of incense was already filling the air. The church in which I was raised only used incense on special days...definitely on Easter, maybe on Christmas, rarely any other time. This was a "regular" Sunday, and the incense was part of it.

Once liturgy began, I realized that what I had suspected upon entering the church was true. The set of rituals used by the Byzantine Catholics were those of the Orthodox Church. The rituals I had read about and had wanted to see for myself by visiting an Orthodox church I had unintentionally found in a Catholic church. In the short term, this was wonderful. This was not the Catholic Church as I knew it. The Divine Liturgy (the equivalent of the Mass in the Latin Rite) was scripturally rich, theologically deep, and personally meaningful. There was a sense of reverence, awe, and worship that I had never seen in a Latin-Rite church. If anything, it seemed like the people in the Latin-Rite were more interested in fulfilling an obligation rather than experiencing the presence of the Living God. There was (and still is) a parish in my home town that has Mass on Saturday afternoon at 4:30 and at 5:30 in the same "space". You can only imagine how fast the 4:30 Mass must go in order to clear the church and the parking lot to make way for the people attending at 5:30. We often used to joke that they should consider putting in a drive-thru, with the people receiving communion and a small card with the readings for the day in a ziplock bag from the window. Regardless of the parish, you would be hard-pressed to find a Mass that takes more that 50 minutes on any given Sunday morning. By contrast, the Divine Liturgy of the Byzantine Rite takes at least 75 minutes, and usually takes closer to 90. The more relaxed pace of the Liturgy (due mainly to the fact that the entire Liturgy is chanted a capella) and the solemnity of the prayers (a solemnity enhanced by their length) made it obvious that these people were here because they wanted to be here. There was a sense of "we know this isn't easy, and we don't care, because this is the correct way to worship God". The emptiness I had known as Catholicism was not true of this kind of Catholicism, and I wanted more of it.

After that one visit, I did not want to go back to any Latin-Rite church, and for the most part I didn't. There were occasional Sundays when I went to church with my mom and dad, or when Terrie and I went to church with her parents, but when we went to church ourselves, we went to St. John Chrysostom.

However, there were still the theological issues: the filioque, original sin, and the Pope. You see, even though the rituals are different among the different rites, the beliefs are the same. So, as much as the Byzantine Rite was clearly a step in the correct direction, I felt there was still more to be found, that somehow "the truth" was still just beyond the horizon. After a lot of discussion, I convinced Terrie that we should visit an Orthodox church. This was a hard sell, given the stance of her mom toward any church that was not Catholic, and truth be told we did not tell her mom where we went to church that morning in 1987. Going to a wonderful Greek Orthodox church turned out to be a huge mistake. I know now that getting to the church at 8am for Orthros (which I didn't realize was matins) meant that we were a full 90 minutes early for the Divine Liturgy. At 8 am, the church was empty, save us near the back, an elderly woman in the front, the cantor, and the priest. And since everything was chanted in Greek, we were truly lost. As 9:30 drew closer, a few more people entered the church, but even so most of the people did not arrive until well after the Liturgy had started. It was the same rituals, but these people did not have the same seriousness of purpose as the parishioners at St. John Chrysostom. Despite this, I saw this as a reason to learn more. Obviously I had missed something in my reading, and rather than pass it off as the fault of the people at the Orthodox church, I took it as my fault for thinking I could "get it" just by reading about "it". Terrie did not. She was not interested in the theological aspects of the faith at that time. She was, however, interested in the seriousness of purpose we had found at St. John Chrysostom, and as such did not want to return to any Orthodox church ever again. With some reservation, I agreed, and St. John Chrysostom became our home. We did not step foot into another Orthodox church for a full 15 years. For the most part, however, it was a wonderful 15 years.

To be continued...

Journey to Orthodoxy, Part 2

The Search Begins

The vast majority of the people with whom I went high school fall into one of the following two categories:

(1) no longer Catholic and don't belong to any particular church, but still Christian; or

(2) still Catholic, not as a result of being convinced that Catholicism is the truth, but because, courtesy of being raised Catholic, it's comfortable and easy.

I, however, upon graduating from high school, felt the need to make up for what was lacking in my formal religious education. So, I began to take a close look at the Catholic Church, what it believed, how it worshiped, and compared it with what I believed. There were several things I found I simply didn’t believe:

(1) the Pope is infallible

The idea that the Holy Spirit is inspiring exactly one man to proclaim the truth flies in the face of the early Church, in particular the council held in Jerusalem mentioned in the Book of Acts where Peter was on the side of the heretics. And there is a long list of inconsistencies, some obvious and some more technical in nature. An example of “the obvious” is the fact that Pope Honorius I was condemned by name as a heretic. It also didn't make sense that the Catholic Church didn't figure out that the Pope was infallible until the mid 1800's.

(2) we are guilty of Adam's sin

I'm OK with being guilty of my own sins, and with repenting them, but to say that I'm guilty of what someone else chose to do simply doesn't make sense. And considering the amount of Catholic theology that is based on this rendering of the concept of original sin (in particular, the Immaculate Conception and limbo), questioning this concept turns out to be huge.

(3) the procession of the Holy Spirit

It's right there in the Gospels. First, in John 15:26, Jesus says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, not from the Father and the Son as the Catholic version of the Nicene Creed states. Second, in Luke 1, the angel tells Mary that she will conceive Jesus by the Holy Spirit. To say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son when it was the Spirit who "sent" Christ into the world doesn't make sense. So, there's something wrong with the official Creed of the Catholic Church.

In short, I found three big theological problems with what the Catholic Church professes. This shook the foundations of everything I believed. So, with a completely open mind, I went looking.

To begin the search, I started reading, and I quickly realized that regardless of how contradictory I was finding Catholic doctrine and how empty I was finding Catholic worship, Christ was still the truth. And that's what I was looking for: the truth. I probably wouldn't have put it into those words at the time, but looking back I can see that the entire journey was a search for the truth. There seemed to be hints of the truth in lots of other religions and philosophies, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, but I wasn’t looking for “hints” of the truth. I wanted the truth in its entirety, and Christianity was undoubtedly step one on the road toward it.

So, I started reading about the origins and theologies of the different Christian denominations: Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and on and on. I also visited church after church, including some non-denominational Christian churches. I thought Catholicism was empty; I was wrong. Catholicism was lacking; Protestantism was empty. Catholics could at least give you some sense of what they believed beyond "I believe in Jesus" and "I believe in the Bible"; most Protestants (especially the non-denominational and Evangelical Protestants) couldn't. And of those that could, there was a major problem.

At the beginning of the search, I was focused on finding a Christian church that didn't profess any of (1)-(3) above. Of course, none of the other Christian denominations agree with (1). (3) just wasn't mentioned very much in what I read, and in fact of the other denominations that used or at least professed an official creed, all of them used the version of the Nicene Creed that included the phrase "and the Son". So this at least narrowed the options. Then there's (2). Seeming all of the other denominations bought into (2). Following in the footsteps of Augustine, man is born with the taint of original sin, as guilty of the sin of Adam as if each had committed the sin personally. Trying to find a church that avoided (2) left me with two options: a non-denominational Christian church (where as long as you believe “in Jesus and the Bible” the rest of what you believe tends not to matter), and one that seemed intriguing but with which I had no previous contact: Orthodoxy.

Now, let’s be clear: Orthodoxy is not a Protestant denomination. Most of the Protestant denominations that exist today began with the same basic premise: the congregation we are currently with is wrong on several points, so we’ll leave and form our own congregation. And even those that originally sought to reform the Catholic church from within (Martin Luther would be included with this group) quickly figured out that such efforts usually result in your excommunication, forcing you and your followers to form your own congregation. Orthodoxy, by contrast, traces its origins to the day of Pentecost in 33 A.D., and its break from Catholicism around 1054 A.D. was due to mutual excommunications: the Eastern Christians (now known as the Orthodox) threw the Western Christians (now known as the Catholics) out of the church, and the Catholics threw the Orthodox out as well. While there were lots of politically-driven reasons for the split, many the result of the east-west split that occurred in the Roman Empire, there were also theological reasons. In particular, the Eastern Christians faulted the Western Christians for the addition they made to the Nicene Creed (the “filioque”), for their incorrect translation of Romans 5:12 that lead to an incorrect view of original sin, and for their emphasis of the primacy of the bishop of Rome.

Does this list look familiar? Needless to say, I was very focused on learning more about Orthodoxy, and the more I learned, the more convinced I was that Orthodoxy was the keeper of the truth. It was time to visit an Orthodox church and experience the worship I had read so much about, worship that was continually described as indescribable.

At the time, the girl I was dating (currently known as “my wife “ J) had received an assignment in her home-ec class at the same Catholic high school from which I had graduated. The assignment was to visit a different church and write a paper about the experience (do not ask why (1) the assignment was in a home-ec class; or (2) the Catholic high school was encouraging students to visit other churches…I don’t have an answer for either question). Now, my mother-in-law had converted to Catholicism, and as such had been shunned by her father, who in turn prevented any other members of the family from having anything to do with her. My wife never knew any of her relatives on her mother’s side of the family until her grandfather died. My mother-in-law had given up her entire family for the sake of converting to Catholicism (and for my father-in-law), and as such was firmly against the idea of her daughter attending a different church for any reason, even if it was only for one Sunday. In need of a compromise, we found one: St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. It was still Catholic, so my mother-in-law was content. It was different enough that the home-ec teacher was content. Visiting there one Sunday would impact the next 15+ years of our lives.

To be continued…