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Dean’s List of 21 Reasons to be an Orthodox

Christian
MAY 12, 2016 BY FR. JOHN — 7 COMMENTS

I saw this whimsical little list about being an Orthodox Christian posted a few days back, and
immediately wrote to Dean for permission to repost it. Enjoy.

by Dean Arnold

Important caveats:

This is Dean’s List. I do not speak for the Orthodox Church.

I love the people and forbearers of my Protestant heritage.

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I believe some Orthodox are going to hell, and some non-Orthodox to heaven. This is
about truth and love, not eternal destiny.
I like to have a little fun when I write.

1. Orthodoxy provides the only valid reason to follow their authority.

Here is the issue: you are sitting in
church (or you never got there), and the
leaders are telling you the following:

1. You should be attending this

church regularly.

2. You should be supporting this

church financially.

But why? Who says? Catholics will say

the church authority—the Pope
ultimately—says you must, and he is in the line of the Apostles. (Actually, he’s not anymore. Later
in this List I deal with the Pope.) Protestants will tell you that the Scriptures tell us to go to church.

“  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good
deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but
encouraging one another. (Heb. 10:24-5)
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those
who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would
be unprofitable for you. (Heb. 13:17)

These leaders will tell you that the Scriptures are the final authority. Sola Scriptura (“Scripture
alone” in Latin). Well, what if I don’t think the Scriptures are as clear as that guy in the pulpit
asking for my money thinks? I don’t see anything about weekly services, or ten percent, or long
sermons, much less anything on robes and choirs and creeds. (Or, for those in cool churches,
nothing about guitars, rock music, large crowds, power point presentations, or skinny jeans.)

What if I just say,

“ “I don’t see it the way you see it. Why should I do what you say?”

Intellectually honest seekers will rightly question why they shouldn’t just start a church themselves
in their own home … or just have church by themselves.

The shallow Protestant pastor will say,

“ “Because I’m in charge and you should obey your authority.”

The more thoughtful pastor will say,

“ “Because the Scriptures seem to teach church attendance and financial support.”

You can see how the authority is already dwindling (along with church attendance in America).

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Worse than that, their argument for the authority of Scripture is also weak. Why does the pastor
think the Bible is God’s word and the final authority? He will say,

“ “Because it was handed down to us from the Apostles and the Church Fathers.”

But those same Apostles and Church Fathers insisted that church attendance and support was
mandatory, not suggestive. They also believed in confession, liturgy, the real presence of Jesus in
the Eucharist, icons, and a lot of other things most Protestants reject today. They also said you
can’t leave the Orthodox Church. Why is their authority valid for picking the books of the Bible but
not the other matters?

Ultimately, Sola Scriptura does not work. It sounds like a choice

between Scripture and Tradition, but it’s really a choice between one
smart Christian’s view of the Bible and the consensus view on the
Bible from thousands of even smarter Christians, likely more
prayerful, over a couple thousand years. The one guy inevitably
disagrees with the other smart Christian that lives next door, and
unity in the church becomes impossible.

The better path to authority, I argue the only path, is by sticking with ordination, the laying on of
hands, and the solemn order of succession in Christianity that started with Jesus ordaining his
disciples. Those Apostles ordained their followers (such as Titus and Timothy) and they continued
that valid leadership—excluding the ones drummed out—until today. This is called Apostolic
Succession.

I used to think I must be a Roman Catholic to enjoy this authority. As a Protestant I had given up
hope for such a thing. But it is still alive and well. The Orthodox Church, with several hundred
million followers, is the second largest expression of Christianity in the world.

Ultimately, this first point will be the subject of a separate blog post. (Here’s an excellent piece I
will refer to.) This is the first and most important point in deciding which gathering of Christians you
will be a part of, if any. I have 19 more on this list that are interesting, compelling, even humorous,
but none of them ultimately matters without this first point: the question of authority.

2. The Orthodox do what the early church did.

Do some serious historical scholarship and you
soon find out that the Apostles and early
Christians were into bishops, liturgy, sacramental
mystery, robes, and all the things that make
modern Christians recoil. They did not hold ad
hoc sessions with bibles on their laps using
folding chairs circling the center of the room.
In 155 A.D., Justin Martyr provides a description of
a baptism service where scripted prayers are
recited and everyone says “Amen.” He also talks
about regular fasting. The Didache, a late First
Century church handbook, confirms the fasting was
done by early Christians on Wednesdays and
Fridays. It also provides scripted prayers for the
main services, which center around the eucharist,
and for individuals proscribes praying the “Our
Father” three times a day.

Dr. Peter Gillquist, who attended Dallas Theological

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Seminary in the 60s, learned about this when he and his handful of buddies, all leaders in Campus
Crusade for Christ, started studying the early church and resolved to start a church based on what
the early Christians did. I had the privilege of chatting with Gillquist about it a couple years before
he died in 2012. He said his buddy, and church history scholar, called them up and said,

“ “You’re not gonna believe this. The early Christians were liturgical and sacramental!”

That led them to eventually becoming Orthodox, and thousands have followed them into
Orthodoxy in America since their migration in the late ‘70s.

The Orthodox structure services the same way Christians did in the First Century, which is quite
similar to what Jews did in the First Century. The architecture of our services, the floor plan, the
props used (Gospel book, cross, eucharist) follow the contents of the Ark of the Covenant. We
chant Psalms all through the services, like the Jews did. We greet each other with a kiss. Look at
the Sanhedrin in the movie The Passion and you’d think it was a gathering of Orthodox Bishops.
We dress like the early church. If you want to be like the early church, be Orthodox.

3. You can have apostolic tradition without being (Roman) Catholic.

I always wanted to be part of a Christian tradition that went all the way
back to Christ and the Apostles. But I thought to do that you had to be a
Roman Catholic. It turns out that’s not the case. The Orthodox call the
Pope “the first Prostestant,” because he protested and rebelled against
the original church.

Let me provide a brief church history, terribly truncated by me and

certainly from my perspective: Jesus laid his hands on the Apostles and
actually began the institutional church (now a dirty phrase!) and “the
gates of hell have not prevailed against it.” It continues today in the form
of the Orthodox Church. In around 1000 AD the Patriarch of Rome broke off from the rest of the
Patriarchs because he wanted to change the Council of Nicea of A.D. 325.. And, of course, he
wanted to be in charge. For a thousand years, the church had been “ruled” by hundreds of
bishops coming together in a full council to decide the core truths of Christianity. No one man was
in charge. They did this less then ten times in 1000 years. From these councils we crystallized the
teaching of divinity of Christ and divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the divine and human
natures of Christ, and other foundational Christian beliefs.

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Time

Rome’s break really screwed up Christianity. The other bishops said the councils cannot be
changed, and they certainly did not believe one man should be in charge. 500 years after this
“Great Schism,” as it is known, the Reformers like Luther and Calvin rightly rebelled from various
false teachings and practices committed by the Roman Catholic Church that had strayed from its
authority—problems like indulgences, papal infallibility, and crusades. They also invented new
doctrines like the Immaculate Conception (which teaches that Mary was born without original sin).
The eastern Orthodox never committed these false practices.

Unfortunately, Martin Luther let the genie out of the bottle. If one man can break away from the
church, he can decide for himself what is right. He can cause a church split. He can lead church in
his own home. Hell, he can just have church with himself. Who can tell him different, for the
Protestant belief is that he is in charge. Instead of one pope, we now have millions of them.

The solution to all this chaos is Apostolic Succession. And you can jump on board without

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becoming a Roman Catholic.

4. Sound, sane morality is preserved.

Evangelical Christianity has spent a century or more fighting
the good fight to keep their churches and the culture
around them from sliding into moral decay. Whether the
problem be divorce, abortion, sexual immorality,
homosexuality, proper male and female roles, or whatever
the new weirdness is, good Biblical Christians have been
trying their darndest to keep the ship from splintering apart.
It’s not working.
My Father, a very conservative pastor with a doctorate in
theology, was terrified of the slippery slope. Allow one couple
to get a divorce without the reasons being glaringly black and
white obvious, and the entire church, all Christians, and the
rest of the culture will slide down as well. Allow one gal to
preach a sermon and women pastors will be the norm. Spend some time with a gay couple
without confronting them, and their lifestyle will be considered accepted.

This paranoia is understandable if it is up to every single Christian, elucidating the proper moral
precepts through Sola Scriptura, to uphold correct morality. Orthodox Christians don’t have to
worry about it in that way. The Church has already made the declarations.

While Orthodoxy over the ages has had it’s struggles, to be sure, to preserve the true faith, we can
be generally confident that the following will remain constant: marriage will be between a man and
a woman, divorce, sexual immorality and homosexuality will be called sin, abortion will be
considered abhorrent, and priests will always be men. These are not beliefs up for Scriptural
review.

On the plus side, those struggling with their particular version of sin—these days the hot button is
homosexuality—are not shunned by the Orthodox Church. They are welcomed as sinners, but
they are not allowed to take communion until they go to confession, agree that their problems
are sins, and start a long process to overcome their problem, just like all the adulterers,
fornicators, lusters, and liars in the church, who are also sometimes denied communion.

At the point of confession and a desire to repent, they are most welcome to commune (take
communion) like all the other struggling sinners in church. Before that, they are not shunned, they
are not asked to stay away from church, they are simply told not to come up for communion (thus
the word “ex-communicate”).

5. Orthodox leaders have cool beards, like hipsters.

Bishops and monastics tend to have long, fluffy beards. Hipsters love
this. It sounds like a small thing, and it is. But it makes the point that
Christians should be setting the standard, not the culture.

On some points, the culture will view ancient Christian practices as weird
or offensive. In other ways, Orthodox Christians will be ahead of the
curve. So it’s time to quit trying to be relevent and just be authentic. Let
fashion catch up to you.

6. Orthodoxy affirms art.

Attend your typical Orthodox service and you will see images everywhere. Icons on the walls,
patterns on the vestments, Crosses on every neck, and a lot of color.

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Cool churches these days are trying to get back to having some art and images in the service.
Basic human beings, and particularly non-religious ones, are really into art. Let fashion catch up to
you.

7.  You get to join a traditional culture, the land of the sane.
Any good old farmer back in the day knew that a city boy with too much education can become so
smart they become incredibly stupid. That pretty much describes Western culture these days.

We don’t know what a man and a woman is anymore. We don’t know that it’s better to follow God
than Satan. We don’t know that it’s wrong to kill babies. We have no intellectual arguments against
pedophilia. We don’t know how to grow basic, healthy food anymore. It took us five decades to
figure out breastfeeding was probably a better idea all along than chemicals called formula. We
are so smart and sophisticated, we can’t be basic, normal humans anymore.

Orthodoxy is a traditional culture. Many things stay the same. Thank God.

8. Orthodoxy is multicultural and international

Everybody these days wants to think globally and
with diversity. Orthodoxy has always done so. While
somewhat sparse in the West, the historic church is
quite strong in Greece, Eastern Europe and Russia,
in Arabic countries like Syria and Lebanon, the
Caucasus of Georgia and Armenia, in African
countries like Egypt and Ethiopia. There is a strong
presence in Southern India. In America, Orthodoxy
has by far it’s highest concentration in Native American Alaska.

These wonderful, millennia long Christian traditions are indigenous, not some Evangelical version
of colonialism where we “go over there and make them Christians.” White Orthodox people don’t
feel much guilt because we’re not a majority and we’re not in charge.

Orthodox Christians look a lot like what you’d think Jesus would want his people to look like. Multi-
colored. Scroll down on this page to get a great visual of it.

9. Orthodoxy is peace-loving, not militaristic.

Just a few decades after the Roman Catholic Church
left the Orthodox Church in 1054, the Pope
announced the First Crusade. This is likely not a
coincidence.

Eastern Christianity does not have crusades as part

of its tradition. But in the West, militarism in the name
of Christ has been a blemish on Christianity for a
millennium, and its spirit continues until today with
George W. Bush recruiting Bible Belt Christians to
support the decimation of Iraq.

Undoubtedly, this is a complex matter, and Orthodoxy is not unblemished. But, generally, the
Church does not support militarism or invasion but does allow for armed defense. Beyond that, the
Church really does promote Jesus’s teachings to be loving, peaceful, and merciful to our enemies.

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For two thousand years, the Orthodox Church has started every Sunday morning service by
reciting the Beatitudes. Like, they really believe them:

“ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount is considered the foundation stone of all teaching and doctrine. In
Prostestantism, it seemed to me we were always thinking,

“ “Yeah, yeah, that stuff Jesus talked about, but let’s get to Paul’s doctrines in the
Epistles and all those cool wars in the Old Testament.”

10. Orthodoxy majors on the majors, like love.

Left to ourselves, we are so quick to be “blown here and there by every
wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their
deceitful scheming.” (Eph: 4:14) Protestant Christianity seems to be
based on the idea of peddling a certain pet doctrine in order to justify
your existence, otherwise why wouldn’t you be worshipping with the
people across the street?

Therefore, the pressing need is to talk about believer’s baptism or

predestination or the true sabbath day or tongues or musical
Arabic Calligraphy for instruments, et al. We could list hundreds. Orthodoxy already knows
“God is Love”
what it believes and can therefore emphasize in its services the more
important teachings. Jesus’s teachings in the Gospels are read out loud
and preached at every service. As mentioned, the Beatitudes are always recited. Love your
enemies gets mentioned a lot. Every day during lent we ask God to help us “not to judge my
brother.”

Sure, a squirrelly priest could spend time talking about less important things, or his own pet
doctrines, but it’s pretty difficult to do, seeing that 90 percent of the service has already been
scripted for him by the ancient church fathers.

We do have some “pet” doctrines that get hammered home constantly, but they happen to be
teachings such as the Resurrection, the Trinity, and the divine and human natures of Christ.

11. You can actually point to a place for people to go be a Christian.

As a Protestant, I was always a little embarrassed by
the church. I made sure that I was going to a place that
was decent, and I could always recommend that
someone come to MY church if they wanted. But
beyond that, it was like, “well, being a Christian isn’t
about going to church.”

Now, I can point someone to the Orthodox Church,

whether they live in my town or in Indonesia. There is a
real, physical place they can interact with, with real
people and leaders. Their doctrine will not stray. If they serve Kool-Aid after the service, it won’t be
spiked with strychnine. I don’t have to be there to monitor things.

Modern day notions of house churches, the “Invisible Church” and “spiritual but not religious” all
sound good, but they really don’t work out well in the long run. Someone has to be in charge,
other people disagree with how they run it, and before too long we’ve splintered and lost any
continuity. Jesus’s prayer that we

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“ “be brought to complete unity”

remains an abstract thing, an invisible church thing, not an actual thing on the ground, with real
people, over many decades.

12. Orthodoxy is not a personality cult.

“Where do you go to church?” “Who’s the pastor
there?” That’s usually how a conversation goes for an
Evangelical. Modern day Christianity reminds me of a
traditional continent with thousands of tribes. The
ones with the most charismatic chiefs do the best. I
like to view Orthodoxy as more like a constitutional
country where things still flow somewhat smoothly
even if a terrible President is in power like Richard
Nixon or Bill Clinton (pick your favorite whipping
boy).

pAs already mentioned, the lionshare of the services are scripted. So Father Clinton/Nixon
wouldn’t have a lot of room to screw things up. The passage for the priest’s sermon is already
chosen by the church calendar, and the sermon is a short part of the larger service. The climax of
the service is not the sermon, it’s the taking of the Eucharist near the end.

The growth strategy for Orthodoxy is to plant more small parishes, not megachurches, so a
dynamic personality doesn’t really even get that much of a chance to lead thousands astray.

Church splits are often the result of smarter, more gifted people in the pews getting tired of
listening to pastor Joe Shmoe every single week. Not only is his sermon 75 percent of the service,
but he scripts and choreographs the rest of it too. The smarter people find something better, or
they create it themselves. Who’s going to stop them?

13. You get to drink wine at church.

Paradigm shift. While there a number of weird things
Orthodoxy brings to the table, no longer is “we don’t drink
alcohol” one of them. That was a ridiculous burr the
Fundamentalists put in the Christian saddle for a century or
so, but it’s fading fast, and Orthodoxy demolishes it. (Note: I
like Fundamentalists in general, especially as co-laborers in
the culture wars.) We drink wine at major feasts, at Easter
(lots of it), and certainly enjoy it in generous doses away from
church as well. Russians bring a lot of vodka to the feasts. We
don’t overdo it. No one’s faculties get impaired or anything.

14. You get to drink wine at church.

Did I mention this yet?
 
15. You actually are allowed to know God personally.
I know this sounds crazy, but Western Christianity—starting with the Catholics and continuing with
the Protestants—believe, on paper, that you can’t actually know God himself, only about him.
Western Christianity’s great theologian Thomas Aquinas differentiated between “seeing the Divine
essence” and “comprehending the Divine essence.” The idea was that God himself is so different
from us that we can’t see him or know him, like Adam knew Eve. But you can know about him
intellectually. And thus the great heroes of Western Christianity are often intellectual giants

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(Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, etc.) rather than martyrs

and ascetics.

Great Orthodox thinkers will affirm that the biggest

difference between Eastern and Western
Christianity is neither papal infallibility nor changing
the creed (the “filioque” controversy [Latin for “and
the Son”] which lessened the Holy Spirit by
attributing one of His unique qualities to Christ).
Rather, it is the West’s exaltation of reason or
rationality over heart and spirit. The East
emphasizes mystery. One of Orthodoxy’s great
Ancient Christian Worship
saints argued against the idea that God cannot be
known and experienced directly. St. Gregory
Palamas affirmed what the church had always taught, that God can be known and experienced
directly, not in his essence, but in his uncreated divine energies.

Palamas debated a 14th Century Western scholar who said Eastern monks would be better off
studying about God instead of praying all day, valuing knowledge over revelation. Palamas said
encounters like the Apostles at the Transfiguration were direct experiences with the Divine that
others can also experience. Palamas was far-sighted in saying that the Roman change of the
creed, harming the Holy Spirit’s uniqueness, and the subsequent inability to acknowledge
encounters with God’s uncreated energies directly, would ultimately lead to atheism. Great
novelist Fyodor Dostoyevski said the same. (Start at 3.00 for an excellent podcast tracing the
atheism and occultism of the West to this medievil philosophical tipping point.)

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The Reformers accepted this troublesome premise by default, and never rejected it. Christian
movements in the last century have sought to address this real problem. Pentecostals stress a
direct experience with God and Evangelicals stress a “personal relationship” with God. But neither
group may be aware that they are fighting uphill against their own theological traditions.

16. Orthodoxy sets a high standard for “manly men.”

Orthodox Christianity is difficult.

You stand during church. You fast
for 40 days before Easter and
Christmas, abstaining from meat
and all dairy products. (You also
do this every Wednesday and
Friday.) You don’t eat or drink
anything before taking Eucharist
on Sunday (fellow coffee addicts
be warned). You go to confession
about once a month and share
your dirt. If you ever get faithful in
those areas, you can up your game by visiting a monastery, or even joining one!

On one level, it seems our culture loves seeker friendly churches. But on another level, don’t we
really, ultimately, want to be challenged? Great athletes work relentlessly to reach the highest
levels. Marathons and Ironman competitions are wildly popular these days. Those kids in the
spelling bee finals read dictionaries for years. Becoming Orthodox is joining the elite, the real men
and the real women. (As an aside, most Evangelical churches are dominated by females, who

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drag their husbands to church, if at all. Orthodox churches are often the opposite. Men usually find
it first, and the women follow them.)

18. In Orthodoxy, women share the stage.

I know, women can’t be priests or bishops. But the focal point of every
Orthodox church is two icons up front that surround the altar. On the right
is an icon of the man Jesus Christ. On the left is an icon of Mary, Christ’s
mother, holding her divine child. This is the basic setup for every church
in the world, without exception.

In Orthodoxy, a woman has a lead role. Not in Protestantism. In

Orthodoxy, a woman is greatly venerated (not worshipped) and greatly
loved. Openly and publicly. This absolutely must make a difference on the
culture. Mostly referred to as “Theotokos” (Mother of God), she provides
the greatest inspiration for motherhood and the perfect model for virginity.

Notice the explosion of goddess worship in coffee shop bookstores across the Western world.
Humanity senses that 50 percent of the population is female and that heaven should reflect that.
Orthodoxy refers to their leading lady as the Queen of Heaven (Rev. 12, Psalm45:6-9). If this
freaks you out as a Protestant, Martin Luther, who taught on Mary’s perpetual virginity, referred to
her as “Queen of Heaven” his entire life.

18. Our tradition is one of much suffering.

Orthodoxy looks and smells
like Christ. Most of the
history of the church is one
of suffering, struggle, and
even martyrdom.

Syria is a stronghold for

Orthodoxy.

Russia and Eastern Europe

all persecuted Orthodox
Christianity there before
Communism’s fall 25 years
ago.

Greek Christians were persecuted by the Turks for several hundred years—impaling was the
preferred form of execution—before they gained liberation in the 19th Century.

Ethiopia, the poorest country in the world, is majority Nicean Orthodox and the first nation to
declare itself Christian. While there are pockets of wealth and success, and seasons of history
where the Orthodox “did well,” by and large Orthodoxy is not a poster child for health and wealth
Christianity.

19. We believe in miracles and healings, but without the weirdos.

Modern day Pentecostals and Charismatics, to
their credit, seek to follow a God who still works in
miraculous ways as when Jesus and the Apostles
walked the earth. The Orthodox believe in
miracles. They have a tradition of wonder-working
saints and healers (North America’s most recent

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saint, who died in San Francisco in 1966, is known

as “John the Wonderworker.”) Orthodoxy has
exorcists, icons that weep myrrh supernaturally,
and stories of godly folks of old who levitated and
transported themselves. One group of young
saints fled persecution in a cave, went to sleep, and woke up 300 years later.
Bishop John of San Francisco, the Wonderworker. He sure looked weird, but he was a saint, and
part of the “Holy Fool” tradition.

No Pentecostal church can outweird our supernatural weird. But here’s the bonus: our
wonderworkers are under the authority of their bishops and abbots, the general church heirarchy,
and the church tradition. They can’t just do anything they want. And the fact they can work a
miracle doesn’t mean they are in charge or can’t be confronted or put in their place. In other
words, Jim Jones will not emerge at your local Orthodox Church. But you just might experience a
miracle.

20. We believe in real stuff, created things, bodies, and fun.

Modern Christianity is under a large dose of Gnosticism, an early
heresy that says what really matters are spiritual things. Physical,
earthly, created things are okay, but somehow lesser than the spiritual
things we do. Or maybe the physical stuff is actually evil.

A recent TIME magazine poll showed that only a third of Christians who
believe in the resurrection think they will have an actual, physical body
in eternity.

Because of this theological error, the Fundamentalists chucked alcohol.

Some Christians can’t quite relax about proper sexual pleasure. Others look down on wealth
creation, politics, the arts, and other aspects of the created order that God originally pronounced
“good” in the first chapter of the Bible.

The Orthodox do not do this. We constantly emphasize the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that God
himself, the greatest of “Spirit,” became a man in a real human body. Forever. Heaven and earth
are eternally fused together, and created matter truly matters. In Orthodox services, we light
candles and kiss crosses and wear brilliant vestments and smell incense and paint pictures
everywhere and eat bread and drink wine. When someone joins the church, we wash them, anoint
them with oil, cut off bits of their hair, dunk them in water, and hand them a candle. When they die,
we put that same candle in their hand and a scroll in their other hand pronouncing that they are
forgiven. We exalt their body even after death, as it is made in God’s very image and reaffirmed by
God himself becoming a human body. Creation matters and it is good. Very good.

21. Orthodoxy provides the only valid reason to follow their authority.
As I wrote at the beginning of this piece, the question of whether seeker
to be Orthodox begins and ends with the question of authority.
Everything else builds from that point. I thoroughly believe that a true seeker who is intellectually
honest will end up embracing Orthodox Christianity. It is the only way to answer the question,
“Says who?”

My Father—God rest his awesome soul—used to shake his head at those who supported their
particular belief by saying to him, “We’ve always done it this way.” Granted, the people he was
arguing with were Protestants, and somewhere back there, they weren’t doing it that way. But, for
me, as an Orthodox, that argument is now consistent. They really have “always done it that way.”

Source

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Dean’s List of 21 Reasons to be an Orthodox Christian

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Comments

seerson says
AUGUST 6, 2017 AT 12:56 AM

Excellent.
I became Orthodox, about 20 years ago, coming from a very active charismatic protestant
movement.
They taught seeking God with all your heart, fasting for many days, acts of charity and service,
vigil praying, communion regularly (even alone in your house** i know that can confuse an
Orthodox Christian), Acts of Forgiveness, kindness and love and constant worship and prayer
walks.
Evangelistic way of Life.
My coming to The Church was a pure divine miracle as I hated all things Catholic.
I love your 21 reasons as many of them led me or secured me in The Faith.Notice We

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Dean’s List of 21 Reasons to be an Orthodox Christian https://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2016/05/deans-list-21-reasons-orthodox-christian/

Orthodox do all of The Above ( except personal home communion) and much more.We act as
One, as a community.
Its a people and a family, a way of life not a visit to Church.
Its hard, very rough, manly, strong and weak at the same time..yet because of that..its Strong.
I love The Orthodox Church and cant imagine how I got along without her.
— Robert Seraphim Duprey

Randall says
NOVEMBER 21, 2017 AT 7:57 AM

honestly, i love the orthodox. i have family members, whom i love and respect, who are
orthodox. but to the extent orthodox christians embrace a disciplined life as the way of
salvation, they are in error. it is not our works that save us, but rather clinging to Christ and His
atoning death and resurrection, that saves. works are necessary as a fruit of faith in Christ
alone. but one must never confuse the ‘root’ with the ‘fruit’.

It is this truth that is at the center of the reformation: God is sovereign and only God can save
us, through regeneration (a fundamental change of heart, wrought by the Holy Spirit) and the
gifts of faith and repentance, which we then exercise to lay hold of Christ the Lord.
Unfortunately, Dositheus rejected that truth for all orthodox, rendering the orthodox semi-
pelagian at best in their thinking… and ultimately that is why i cannot be orthodox.

Fr. John says

NOVEMBER 21, 2017 AT 8:05 AM

I don’t even know where to begin with your mistakes. First, James 2:24 refutes your ‘faith
alone’ argument (somehow Reformation Bible experts always forget that part of the Bible).
Second, Dositheus was a gnostic, not Orthodox. At the very least, you should stop bearing
false witness, and at the most – please, read some Orthodox material written by Orthodox
teachers if you want to know what we really believe, not Jack Chick-style parodies of our
teachings. There’s no need to set up straw man arguments. We’ve been around 1,500 years
longer than the Reformation. We’ll be here after it has all played out also.

Debra says
DECEMBER 25, 2019 AT 10:33 AM

Love, love, love this!! I was born and raised Baptist, and by God’s grace found Orthodoxy
when I began asking questions and not getting answers. I am thankful to be able to raise my
daughters in THE Orthodox faith so that they will know the truth from the beginning. Thank you
for this wonderful list, and I cannot wait to read the rest of your posts! Blessings! Christ is Born!

Maher says

13 of 17 9/10/20, 3:10 pm
Dean’s List of 21 Reasons to be an Orthodox Christian https://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2016/05/deans-list-21-reasons-orthodox-christian/

JULY 23, 2020 AT 4:39 PM

I am a Syrian Orthodox
I like this list very much
God bless you??

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