Category: Conversion

Losing our Religion: On “Retaining” Young People in the Orthodox Church

· Seraphim Danckaert
A recent article on the challenge of interfaith marriage in Greek Orthodoxy has been circulating widely on Facebook.[1] One reason for the article’s popularity is its startling claim that 90% of Americans with Greek roots are no longer in communion with the Orthodox Church. Similarly dismal statistics are likely true for most Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, but the article in…

Is Orthodoxy the Same Everywhere?: Understanding Theological Controversy Within the Church

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
What do we mean when we say that Orthodoxy is the same everywhere? One of the “features” of Orthodoxy that is commonly put forward especially by converts as proof of the truth of the Orthodox Christian faith is that Orthodoxy is the same everywhere. They may point to the unanimity of liturgical practice, that all Orthodox look to the same councils and…

Why I Stopped Being a Calvinist (Part 5): A Deformed Christology

· Robin Phillips
By Robin Phillips A Deformed Christology About the same time that my wife and I started to question Monergism, we began to be interested in the early ecumenical councils of the church. We were fascinated to learn that the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681) had provided a framework for understanding the relationship between the human and the divine when it rejected the heresies…

Why I Stopped Being a Calvinist (Part 4): The Heresy of Monergism

· Robin Phillips
By Robin Phillips The Heresy of Monergism If all Calvinism were to be encapsulated by a single term it would be the word Monergism. The term comes from the Greek mono meaning “one,” and erg meaning “work,” and describes the notion that salvation is affected by only one agent, namely God. As R.C. Sproul explains it, “A monergistic work is a work…

Are Conversions to Orthodoxy Tragic? A Response to Leithart

· O&H Contributor
In his latest post at First Things, Leithart laments about 'cross-Christian conversions,' naming them 'tragic.' Are such conversions really tragic, or has Leithart missed the mark when it comes to explaining the Orthodox-Catholic vision of the Church and Holy Tradition?

OCN: Christians Coming Home To Orthodoxy [Video]

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
A new video from the Orthodox Christian Network (OCN) explores some of the basic grounds on which Christians of other traditions choose to become Orthodox Christians. The production value is a little sketchy at points (there seems to be a bit of awkward blue-screening in a couple of the early shots), and some historical details are glossed over (the schism at Chalcedon…

Contemporary Philosopher Conversions to Orthodox Christianity [Video]

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press has published a book about philosophers who have converted to the Orthodox Church, entitled Turning East: Contemporary Philosophers and the Ancient Christian Faith. Here’s the official blurb from SVS Press: The Orthodox Church is one of the largest religious groups in the world. Yet, it remains an enigma in the West, especially among those who mistake it either…

Same-Sex Pair Uses Orthodox Wedding Service

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
[HuffPo] Manhattan saw many couples married that day, but one wedding was different, not only because it was two men being married in a Christian church, nor because they were joined by 80 supportive family members, nor even because it was a fully legal marriage of a same-sex couple, but also because two thinly handcrafted silver metal hoops, seven inches in diameter,…

Conversions and Conversions: Romanians between Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism

· Guest Author
The following by guest author Mihai Oara is in response to the 2006 Gospel Coalition piece John’s Story: Why I Left Eastern Orthodoxy for Evangelicalism. While in the United States we can see many conversions of Evangelicals to Orthodoxy, the situation is quite the reverse in traditional Orthodox countries. This phenomenon is relatively easy to explain in a purely mathematical way: if…

Believing Thomas: How I Left the Bahá’í Faith

· Anjali
This post, by author Anjali Sivan, a convert to Orthodox Christianity, was originally featured on her personal weblog on the occasion of St. Thomas Sunday. In honor of St. Thomas Sunday, I would like to share my own special appreciation for him. There is the fact that he was the apostle who brought the Gospel to India. But even more than that,…