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…